OKI NO MIYA
Masahiko felt something welling up within. A something
that had never been there before. A something like the
mist of life.
Strange; ever since the age he he’d started to take notice of
things he had wondered about where he had come from. He
had watched all sorts of TV science programs, like “The Birth
of Life” and such, but even if they explained the general outlines
of the origins of life they never helped him get at the
basic question, Why I am here? Entirely different from the
sort of things on those shows, his wonder at the fact that life
has a voice and a presence was something that continually ran
through his consciousness. Why, for example, did humans begin
to sing?
Around the time he entered elementary school, Masahiko had
seen a measuring worm crawling along the branch of a cherry
tree near his house. The worm was probably about the length of
his little finger. The pale yellow-bellied insect arched its entire
body upward and then extended it as it made its way forward.
But when it reached the end of a branch it stretched its neck
around as if thinking, and then after a while turned its limbless
upper body about in the air, considering which direction to take.
Realizing there was no path forward, it deftly turned its upper
body back around in the direction from which it had come.
Masahiko could recall feeling himself become almost like
the measuring worm, tensing and then relaxing. The inchworm
had stood there on the tip of the branch with its neck
held up, deep in thought. The May breezes rustled through the
green leaves and reddening cherry fruit. It had seemed to the
young Masahiko that the inchworm was listening to the
sounds of the universe and thinking about the meaning of the
fact that there are things in the world that cannot be measured.
At that time I think I felt great respect for that insect, entrusting
itself to the waves of the May sunlight. When I entered
high school I wrote my first piece of music. It was a short
piece for cello called Satsuki—“May.” I put this image into the
notes.
It was in a forest. Through the leaves the stirring of a gentle
wind was blowing a narrow pathway in and out of sight, again
and again. A determined, philosophically minded little insect
was out for a walk (this part was associated with Grandfather
Masahito). The insect had dedicated itself to the task of going
about the world and taking measurements with the length of
its own body so as to determine in a rough sort of way what
kind of place the world was. That there should prove to be any
great difference among the kinds of trees in the forest, or
among their ages, or among the colors of their trunks and
leaves, and that each would give off its own smell, was something
it had not imagined, but measurement was its responsibility
and so it did not shirk the task.
The time its thoughts were most deeply affected was when
the insect realized that its road came to an end. It was there,
at the time when all things come to an end, that the grace of
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heaven lay. That time, with the wind and sunlight playing
about gently on the back of its neck, was when, in an instant,
the eternity of existence came to dwell in its tiny body. The
forest spread out wide as the insect gazed out onto it and then
returned back into its midst.
It would be easy to misinterpret his piece as a rather contrived,
theoretical sort of thing but actually he’d intended it to
be whimsical, where the truth lay hidden in the play of the
wind and leaves.
What now recalled to his mind that still-unperformed first
piece for cello was his finding, right here in front of him, an
inchworm lying on the branch of a fallen tree. Compared with
the ones he was familiar with in Tokyo this one was greener.
Suddenly, thinking of how the insects up in the mountains must
be even more different, he returned to reality. In front of him
lay the body of the drowned girl. Trying as much as possible not
to look at the dead person, he held some fern leaves in his hand
and swatted away the flies that were settling on the body.
“You too, you’ve had your own misfortunes.”
One of the men engaged in making the stretcher spoke in a
consoling manner. Masahiko was somewhat at a loss as to how
he might reply but his attention was caught by the color of the
dead girl’s obi. Perhaps the sunken village that Ohina and
Omomo had spoken of calling out to had already started to
take form. As they continued their work, the men talked about
the girl who had died. Without particularly trying to listen,
Masahiko overheard various things about her.
The name of the dead woman, it seems, was Sayuri. She had
served at the shrine of Oki no Miya. Back when the droughts
had come, the people in the village had gathered around the
place where the Isara River joins the main branch of the Aka
River and, with their thoughts directed toward the distant Oki
no Miya Shrine, they had prayed for rain. Originally, it seemed,
9 3
there had been a great shrine there facing the distant ocean,
but at some time it had been washed away in a flood. On the
spot where it had once stood was a small stone marker inscribed
with illegible small characters. Before Oai-sama died
she had brought up her foster child Sayuri to become a miko
shrine maiden and had set up a temporary shrine there, but
with the building of the dam it too had been sent to the bottom
of the waters. And so now, with the death of Sayuri, the
traces of Oki no Miya Shrine had completely disappeared.
Oai-sama’s hands had first bathed many of the villagers at
the time of their birth. But before she gave up her work as a
midwife, Oai-sama had said as she delivered the child of a dying
woman who had fallen beneath the weeping cherry tree,
“For ages I’ve been taking care of other peoples’ babies, but
I too would like to have a child of my own.”
And so it had happened that Oai-sama came to bring up the
child of the woman who had died beneath the weeping cherry
tree.
That had confirmed the villagers’ thoughts of Oai-sama being
a different, special sort of person. But when they learned
that the baby girl was born unable to speak they had said
among themselves, “Somehow that child must be blessed in
the thoughts of the gods.” When Sayuri turned seven, Oaisama
had dressed her in a white figured satin kimono with a
scarlet hakama outer skirt and presented her with a flowered
fan—the sign of a miko. It was the fan she had once received
from the head priest of Ontake Shrine. They had walked up
and down the slopes of the village in the valley, presenting
their greetings to every household.
“Thanks to you all, from today Sayuri will become a miko.
She will serve Oki no Miya Shrine and will have the responsibility
of keeping the oceans and the mountains joined through
the courses of the water. We ask your kind favor.”
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“My goodness, have you ever seen anyone so beautiful? That
clothing suits you so well. It’s so lovely. What a pity you can’t
speak.”
This was how the people of the village had congratulated
her when they saw Sayuri bow innocently to them.
“She may not be able to recite the Shinto prayers, but she
can perform the dances. Whenever you have the need, please
ask her to dance.”
And so Sayuri had soon taken up her responsibilities. Whenever
the villagers sent her an invitation—whether for a gathering
of girls at the festival for the twenty-third night of the
moon, or for the river festival, or for any of the festivals for the
mountain gods at the little shrines on even the smallest of
hills—Sayuri would come and dance with a bell attached to a
long tassel. Although there was a male priest, since he was old
and it was troublesome for him to go out, she didn’t have to
worry about interfering with his affairs. When Oai-sama
thought of the future of her adopted child who was unable to
speak, it wasn’t so much that she was afraid she would starve,
but she worried about how Sayuri would make her way in the
world after she was gone. With this in mind, Oai-sama had
tried hard to make Sayuri a part of the life of the village as
soon as possible.
In this village although the rebuilding of houses was rare,
the rebuilding of cow barns was a common occurrence. At
such times Sayuri would be called on for the groundbreaking
ceremonies. It was said that when Sayuri danced with the bell
in her hand the cows showed tenderness in their eyes and
voices. The cows and horses had all been fond of this girl.
Sayuri was born to a woman who died by the wayside and
whose identity was unknown. As long as she was together with
Oai-sama the village would help take care of her. But Oai-sama
must have been especially worried about how, after her death,
9 5
Sayuri would get along. Oai-sama had once said with a very serious
face,
“Sayuri is no ordinary child. I believe she’s a princess of Oki
no Miya.”
Since she couldn’t speak it was unlikely that Sayuri would be
taken as a bride. Yet even when Oai-sama thought of Sayuri in
comparison to herself—a woman who had gone through life
without marrying—she worried about the fact that Sayuri was so
beautiful and about the way that, for all she couldn’t speak, she
might become too affectionate and attached to people. And so
perhaps it was in order to protect Sayuri from being taken advantage
of that Oai-sama had decided to regard her as one who
possessed the qualities of a god. After she stopped working as a
midwife she accompanied Sayuri to all her working engagements.
On the streets they looked like an ordinary mother and
daughter, but when they entered into a ceremony Oai-sama
would change completely and act as one who was carrying out
the duties of attending a goddess. And in laying out the individual
ceremonial dining tables she would give Sayuri the seat of
honor. Naturally, the villagers had followed her lead.
The oldest-looking man stepped back from the stretcher,
now apparently complete. He rubbed his hands, smelling of
the green branches. And then, in a low voice, he spoke.
“All things change, they say—but to turn out like this . . .
Back in the old days, the magnolia flowers were in bloom. Under
the flowers by the big house, Sayuri—she must have been
about nine or ten then—what a beautiful girl she was. She
would dance among the cows, ringing her bell as she moved. It
was such a peaceful sight. The cows must have understood too;
their voices became different.”
Seeing the back of the leg of the dead girl, Masahiko began
to feel dizzy. Green water plants clung to a swollen, wrinkled
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body that showed no traces of having once belonged to a beautiful
young woman. One of the elders picked some bunches of
gentians and, without speaking, placed them around the body,
its hair still wet.
“Whereabouts was that magnolia tree?”
When Masahiko asked this, the men, with plaintive expressions,
stood up together and pointed toward a place at the bottom
of the lake. He was also told that the house where the
magnolia flowers bloomed had been the main building of the
old Silk Estate. Masahiko slightly regretted having asked. For
even if they told him, he wondered if he could understand.
Even if he tried to find out how the sunken village had looked
in the old days, how could he, who had never even looked into
the eye of a cow, possibly understand?
In the summer of the fourth year after Sayuri became a
miko, a drought had come—one such as had never been experienced
before. Oai-sama had thought, now the time has come
for Sayuri to perform the ceremony. Oai-sama had vowed that
if they should get through the drought safely she would put up
a building that anyone who saw would recognize as the shrine
of Oki no Miya. She would do this both for Sayuri and for the
village.
The time had come to have everyone realize that this girl
was serving the gods. When she appeared in front of them for
the ceremony, if she were to perform as she had until now—
even with her graceful movements, her way of sounding the
bell, and her dancing—she would still be unable to call forth
the rains.
Above all, Oai-sama had wondered how to teach this
daughter who could not hear to realize that she herself was
the one who stood between the gods and the people. The purification
rite and the fasting had to be performed together at
the Isara River. From the time she retired from midwifery
9 7
she had become able to concentrate on these things. This was
the way this determined old woman had decided to spend the
remainder of her life. She hadn’t made any promise, yet these
were the final respects she paid to the woman who had collapsed
under that cherry tree. She couldn’t help feeling pity
about it. She wondered whose child Sayuri really was. And for
what reason had she been born beneath that cherry tree?
The fields of upland rice had gradually stopped producing
seeds and remained with barren ears. Countless cracks spread
across the land. Frogs lay belly-up and dried out. Eventually
the villagers had climbed up to Ontake Peak and gathered together
by the side of the memorial stone for Oki no Miya and
begged for water.
After a prayer dance that expressed everyone’s urgent
hopes, the people had taken bamboo containers and filled
them with water by dipping them in the bottom of the shallow
Isara River. This was for carrying up to the top of Ontake
Peak, the point closest to heaven, and pouring onto the source
of the watershed in order to call out to the dragon god of the
waterfalls.
Looking out and seeing the empty-eared rice plants and the
dried up waterways did not ease the people’s worries. With rice
so scarce, the villagers had to gather all sorts of wild grains,
buckwheat, maize, beans, and chestnuts. For these people the
waterways that wound through the villages were not simply
channels of runoff water; they were the waterways of the gods
of the mountains and seas that carried the basis of all life. And
so the old villagers had listened carefully for any signs of the little
gods in the mountains and they were well acquainted with
their comings and goings. And it was also in such a way that
they had looked upon the slightest efforts of Sayuri.
Night and day the gods looked down on the network of waterways,
wells, and rice paddies, checking to see that the water
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OKI NO MIYA
was flowing properly and making sure that none got clogged
with litter and became shut off. An indication might come
from something like the appearance of a snake at the roots of
a reed bamboo, or a rain frog in the top branches of a tabu tree.
The villagers all turned out to take care of things like conducting
the memorial services for the dead insects of the fields,
and helping with the mogura uchi work when they beat away
the moles; and they had to pay attention to the eyes of the
gods, making sure they didn’t overlook anything. It was in such
a way that there came to be instilled in the villagers a sensitivity
to these capillaries of the earth, and a caring to ensure that
the system always flowed properly. Should these lifelines of
countless waterways that ran all the way from Oki no Miya to
the source of the Isara River on Ontake Peak dry up, the life of
the village would be cut off.
“It was in a place where there was deep fog.” Prompted by
some thought that seemed to bear no relevance to what was
going on, another of the men who’d been attending the dead
body began to talk.
“The fog had really settled in thick. It made for good tea.
Somehow it made the smell of tea from anywhere else no
good.
“Yeah, the taste of the tea sure was different. But how did I
get started on tea? When was it? The path from Ontake Notch
was all fogged in. I thought I was lost so I sat down on a rock
to wait for it to clear.
“Then from out of the midst of the fog, shadows of a lot of
people, ten to twenty of them it must have been, passed by
without a sound. As I sat there, someone went right by me.
Without thinking, I stood up and walked alongside. I suppose
I was worried I might be lost. But in any case I found myself
walking along with forty, maybe fifty of them who’d appeared
9 9
out of the fog. I wondered whether they might be the mountain
folk. They were short in height. After a while, when we got to
the river, the shadows disappeared as if they’d sunk into the
water. And then the fog lifted and it cleared. When I looked
around, it was a familiar landscape but I realized I’d walked
quite a way. I wondered what they must have thought of me.”
“Well, as for me, you know, I’ve seen four or five foxes jump
out in the fog. I could tell they were foxes by the shadows of
their tails. And when the rain lifted you could hear the rush of
water sounding through the valley.”
“You never know what you’ll meet back there in the mountains.”
“Right. One time that old lady Okume went looking for catnip
and didn’t get back for three days.”
“Yeah, she went off into the mountains to gather things—but
there was no telling where. Maybe into the Kazura Valley,
where it’s all covered with vines. People warned her she might
have been eaten up by a big snake. The old women in her family
would have cried and been all broken up. There’ve been
stories from way back about the big snakes in that Kazura Valley,
with all its vines.”
“We went in with sickles and axes, making a big fuss in
searching for her.”
“Right—and that was the time we saw the curtain of butterflies.”
“Yeah, I remember it. At first I thought it might be a covering
of katsura leaves stuck to each other, but that too would have
been strange. It turned out to be thousands of butterfly wings.
It was so beautiful looking through the sheet of wings floating
like that and moving with a slight fluttering motion. I’d hardly
ever seen that kind of butterfly before. They were azure-blue
butterflies, covering a little hill and floating almost motionlessly.
Looking at them from a little way off, it seemed like the
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curtain of a theater had dropped across the space between the
hills. Just little butterflies, but there were thousands of them.
When I looked at them one by one they trembled a bit but
didn’t fly away. And then as I watched they floated off into the
mountains and disappeared, as if carried off in a fog. It was really
enchanting. No one knows the names of those butterflies.
“Old Okume was just sitting there resting by the roots beneath
that curtain of butterflies.”
“Right—and finding her there, it doubled our surprise. It
was a bewitching kind of scene. Made us think it might be
some kind of huge snake lying there under the curtain that
had just disappeared. We all wondered—is that really Okumesan?
It left us speechless.”
“Finding her alone up there, it must have been pretty frightening.”
“Sure it was frightening. But then, as if nothing had happened,
old Okume started to talk, ‘Hey, what are you all doing
up here?’ and we felt the tension break.”
“I’ve been working flat out since yesterday. It’s been nothing
but work and I’m beat. After lunch I fell into a deep sleep. I
slept soundly for the first time in ages, and then in a dream I
saw everyone up there on top of Ontake Peak. The dream told
the truth. So good of you all to come.”
“After all we’d been through we were exhausted and it almost
made us laugh to hear her say, ‘Hey—I’m starving, doesn’t
anyone have something to eat?’ It sort of brought us back to
our senses.”
“What was she working for?”
“Wild mountain grapes and mushrooms. Loads and loads of
them. So many she couldn’t carry them by herself.”
It seemed to Masahiko that, except for the dead body, the
mood was like that at any ordinary break time among mountain
workers. He found all of these stories deeply moving.
101
n
The fragrance of the kudzu flowers they had used in building
the grass hut the day before had grown stronger.
In order to carry the dead body of Sayuri down the mountain
the men had cut fresh trees and tied them together with
kudzu vines in the same fashion. The bunches of red-violet
kudzu flowers that yesterday had still been buds had now begun
to open all at once in the shape of inverted wisteria blossoms.
Omomo had told Masahiko that these were the kudzu’s
flowers. As he looked closer he realized that there were flowers
all over the area around the dam. Each time the wide
leaves and flower stems were cut they released a fragrance.
Masahiko thought; if it weren’t for the smell of Sayuri’s body
lying in the grass I’d be completely wrapped in the fragrance
of the mountains.
What was this good smell? As he looked between his feet at
the fresh autumn soil, taking in its rich aroma of fungi, he became
absorbed in thought. He’d never really looked carefully
at soil before. Images came to mind of things like scooping up
garden soil and putting it into a test tube, adding water, shaking
it and examining it for bacteria. Or of squishy mud oozing
out of the cracks in the pavement at a construction site.
Where, he wondered, had his grandfather bought that yellowcolored
soil for his potted plants? Those twisted, bent over
pine and nanten plants had been watered and grown up and
taken on their dwarfed shapes. But after the old man died
they’d mostly withered and died. No one in the family had
paid much attention to his grandfather’s spirit.
It seemed to Masahiko that the soil in the city had become
enfeebled. The village of Amazoko had been flooded by the
dam and a girl named Sayuri now lay dead in front of him.
And yet from hearing the talk of the men it seemed as though
in the area around here the earth was still venting a mist that
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issued from the depths far below. It appeared that even now
the inhabitants of Amazoko were coming and going amidst
things that appeared and disappeared in the mountain mists.
Masahiko was captivated by the talk of shadows that flitted
about in the mountain mists. It was a living story that existed
beyond the realm of what’s called intelligence. He thought
back on the kanpachi cloud of smog above Tokyo. What was
that about, he wondered. The name had been coined by city
people, in reference to the clouds of exhaust that hovered
above the Kanpachi Highway.
Masahiko wanted to shoo away every last fly when any tried
to land on Sayuri. He held a tree branch ready. The men had
gathered and picked up the scattered kudzu flowers and laid
them alongside Sayuri’s body, beside a pillow of bellflowers.
“There’s a bit of a smell—you think it’ll be all right?” he
asked.
One of the old men who were looking on answered, “It’ll be
OK. We don’t have any incense, so the kudzu flowers will have
to do.”
While the men were taking a break, one who had gone down
to get the police and a doctor from the clinic returned with
some new people from the village. To his surprise, Ohina was
among them.
“Thanks for helping out.”
She nodded her regards to Masahiko as if he were one of the
regulars from the village. And then, with an expression of intense
grief, Ohina knelt down beside the pillow by the dead
body.
“Sayuri, so this is what you’ve come to.”
As she said this Ohina reached out to touch the shoulder,
but the policeman quickly held her back.
“You’re not allowed to touch it. The body’s involved in an investigation,
you know.”
103
The discussions about how to move the body continued.
“At least we need to inform the people from Amazoko who
are still living near here. We all owe her so much.”
“As for those who are far away, well, I suppose it can’t be
helped.”
“What kind of a fate is this—coming here and dying?”
“Her mother who died beneath the cherry tree, where do
you suppose she was from?”
“I’ve heard she was from the Mimigawa River. Sayuri from
Mimigawa—her mother said that just before she died by the
roadway. I’m sure I heard that. Isn’t that right Ohina?”
It was well known among the people of Amazoko that Ohina
had been especially close to Sayuri and her foster mother.
“I’ve heard of the Mimigawa too. But why do you suppose
she crossed over the mountains to come to Amazoko, rather
than going down the river by way of Hyuga?”
Ohina fell silent after asking this.
“So we’ve lost one more from Amazoko.”
“She couldn’t speak, but what do you suppose she saw in
this world?”
The stretcher carriers had been decided upon and now they
took turns in carrying the body down. As they began to walk,
one of them said in lowered voice, “That was quite some fire
last night.”
The person who heard this replied, as if he couldn’t help
talking about it, “It burned completely to the ground. Jimpei
was burned badly. The prefecture police came and are investigating
it.”
“Looks like arson, don’t you think?”
“Sh- - - .”
The man who said “arson” glanced back to make sure the local
policeman wasn’t lurking somewhere in the shadows of the
thicket and then replied, “I’ve heard that this dead one here
could have done it.”
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“What the hell are you saying that for?”
The man in front glanced back reprovingly.
The group fell silent. They took rests where the footing
along the path was bad and at last they made their way to the
temple at the base of the mountain. Somehow, word had been
passed along and a surprisingly large number of people—
young and old, men and women—had gathered for a wake.
“I’d thought it was going to be a pretty lonely wake, but with
all these folks it should bring some peace to both the dead one
and her parents.”
After reciting a sutra for the dead, the stooped-over elderly
priest joined his palms together. The villagers’ thoughts were
drawn back to the times before thoughts had even occurred to
them of things happening like the village being flooded for a
dam. They remembered the woman who died beneath the
cherry tree. At that time too this elderly priest had recited a
sutra at the request of Oai-sama, who had taken care of the
dead. No doubt the villagers’ words “her parents” had been addressed
to both the parent who had given birth to her and the
one who had raised her.
Masahiko felt awkward at finding himself in such a place.
He wondered if Ohina and the men had explained about him,
since the villagers were looking at him with particular affection.
He wondered if his grandfather too had ever been in such
a situation in the past. As he glanced at the fence around the
o-mido hall where the statue of the Buddha was placed he was
surprised at what he found. Among the rows of black-painted
wooden markers he found one with the name of his grandfather
written on it. The names were arranged in order of the
amounts of donations, stating how much money had been
given over the generations. As his grandfather had been the
largest donor, his name was written in bold strokes of gold.
Suddenly aware that his own presence at the wake held a special
significance, Masahiko felt nervous and self-conscious.
105
It seemed that those markers somehow linked him to his unknown
ancestors and to his fate in connection with things of
the past. But also, he couldn’t help seeing them as small markers
pointing the way to the village that had disappeared. Somewhere
in Masahiko’s consciousness—still uneasy about the atmosphere
at this wake in the mountain village—a wooden
marker separated from the temple wall and began to float
about as if it were a piece of the remainders of the houses
floating on the water about the dam.
“Whew! Sayuri sure was heavy.”
People were taken by surprise and fell silent. Suddenly
Masahiko recalled placing her on the stretcher. The thick coldness
of her upper arms; he would never forget that, all his life.
He had helped cover the newly made stretcher with reeds. He
had helped lay flowers on the body. But then he had just stood
there, expecting that it would be the villagers who would lay
the body on the stretcher.
He’d heard a voice call out, “Could you lift that arm for me?”
Even after the doctor forced out the water from her stomach
it had seemed that Sayuri’s body was still swollen with water.
And although the men caught glimpses of the autopsy, they
had tried to occupy themselves by smoking or doing small
chores like bundling up the stray branches. Before long, however,
they ended up sitting down and staring at the surface of
the lake. The hushed voices of the policeman and the doctor
were faintly audible. From time to time the surface of the lake
shone with lights.
It had seemed as if the men’s thoughts were being sucked up
and carried off into the depths of the water. The village at the
bottom of the lake held connections for each one of them.
What sort of world, and what sort of compressed time lay
sunken beneath that stagnating green water? Something that
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looked like a string moved through the water. It turned out to
be a small snake. They all had seen it, but it disappeared without
anyone mentioning it. Had the snake been crossing over to
the other side? Where could that valley of kazura vines be
now; the one with the big snakes they’d been talking about a
while ago? It must lie at the bottom of the dam.
A man with a dark beard had stood up as if to urge the others
on.
“Well, we’d better be getting back before it gets dark.”
“Right, before it gets dark,” someone else had repeated, and
then the bearded man bowed in front of the pillow.
“Sayuri, everyone’s here now, so let’s get you down to the
temple . . .”
The man had bowed his head and folded his hands in prayer
for a moment. Then calling out once more, he had taken the
body from its position on its side and lifted it up by placing
one hand behind the shoulders and the other on the back of
the neck. Taking this as a signal, the other men lifted the body
and placed it onto the stretcher of woven branches and
grasses. Ohina had cried out, her voice all choked up, “Cover it
up. Cover it with kudzu flowers.”
Then the policeman had said, “The doctor’s fixed things up
a bit so the body won’t smell, at least until you get it down
there, so everyone just try to hold out a little while longer.”
The mountain path had been narrow, adding to the difficulties
of carrying the body along. At points along the way where
the path widened the stretcher-bearers took turns in relieving
each other. Masahiko had been the youngest among them.
“Lucky we met you here. This should be a good funeral.”
“We don’t have any young folks with us, so you really helped
out. It worked out well.”
He hadn’t minded at all being talked to this way by the men,
but this was the first time in his life he’d done such heavy labor.
107
The day before, in helping build the grass hut, he’d also
done something previously unimaginable. Today’s work had
been a continuation. Starting with his meeting Ohina, and continuing
with these people, it had all seemed to happen in a
rush of fate. But now, after going without any lunch, he felt almost
dizzy. Arriving at the temple he was thanked by women
he’d never met before.
“My goodness. Coming all the way from Tokyo—and the
grandson of the family of the old estate, and helping out with
carrying the body.”
Being greeted like this by the old women had been a bit
hard to take but now Omomo was among the women setting
out the small individual dining tables and he noticed her
looking his way from time to time. Since she was busy she
couldn’t come over, yet Masahiko felt relieved. He was surprised
to find himself wanting to tell this girl he’d just met the
day before about how he’d worked during the past day. Shochu
liquor was passed around and gradually things got under way
in the living quarters of the temple and the mood grew more
lively.
Women came in carrying sake glasses and asked, soliciting
agreement, “Isn’t this a fine wake—so festive and all?”
Masahiko had never imagined feeling festive at a time when
a dead person was present. Wouldn’t his grandfather also have
wished to meet his death in a place such as this? Grandfather
Masahito’s funeral had been just a formal ceremony;
with a set schedule, according to orders spoken by funeral
directors’ gloomy voices, and hurried along by the crowd behind
him. Would they ever have given such a warm send-off
to a drowned person who was involved in a police investigation?
Even though he’d heard that she had no relatives other
than the parent who had raised her, the people of Amazoko
were talking of their deep ties to her.
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He dimly recalled what Omomo had said to her mother the
night before facing the dark surface of the lake; If we can’t get
our feelings through to Amazoko, why don’t we call it up?
Now, as time had passed those words came back to Masahiko’s
ears with deeper meaning. Could it be that these people here
were the people they had called out to?
The policeman’s face had grown quite ruddy, but recalling
his duty he began questioning the man who had brought the
drinking cups.
“So tell me now—who was it that saw Sayuri last?”
After getting the policeman to take a cup, the man being
questioned replied, “Well this is really something now, isn’t it?
I see you can’t forget your job even now.”
“So the last person to see Sayuri was . . ?”
“All right, all right, I heard you already—so you want to
know who was the last person Sayuri was seen by.”
“Well, who was it?”
“Plenty saw her—people who went to watch the fire. Who
was it that saw her the most? Well, it must have been Tamayo.”
“Who’s Tamayo?”
“Tamayo—she lives near Jimpei.”
“Ah, you mean that kid who doesn’t like going to school.”
“Right. Tamayo. The one who hates school. But even if she
doesn’t like school, none of the adults can beat her at gathering
catnip.”
“So what was this Tamayo saying?”
“All last night she was watching Sayuri. From start to finish.”
“Is that so?”
“Tamayo sleepwalks—but you must know about that already.
It was a moonlit night. She was walking along the
Otachidote Embankment. And then across from her, like a doll
in the joruri puppet theater, Sayuri approached. Tamayo said
109
she looked like the teradehime princess. Sayuri’s face was all
white, like a teradehime in those performances that come to
town from time to time—you know them don’t you?—Well OK,
even if you don’t, it’s no matter. Anyhow, it seems she was
walking along like some joruri doll. Tamayo may not like
school but she loves joruri so she remembered a lot from it and
she copied it. So she bowed, and in the moonlit night she must
have gotten caught up in the spirit of it and walked along, imitating
the samisen music with her voice.
“Then she arrived at Jimpei’s stable. Sayuri loved horses and
cows, and they were fond of her too. For a while she patted and
stroked the horse and rubbed her head against it. The horse
sighed. It wasn’t fully grown yet. When she was younger Sayuri
danced at the groundbreaking ceremony for the stable. From
then on the horses grew attached to her.
“I don’t know what she could have been thinking, but she
led the horse out of the stable, and then along the way she tied
it to a willow tree. Tamayo must’ve thought it strange and followed
along behind. Whatever Sayuri was thinking of, she left
the horse there and turned back. With the horse there all
alone, Tamayo wondered what to do. She looked around toward
the horse, and then toward Sayuri, and then approached
the horse and spoke to it.
“While Tamayo was doing this she noticed the fire starting
up beyond the reed thicket on the embankment. She ran.
The fire was in Jimpei’s direction. She paced back and forth,
wondering what to do with the horse. While this was going
on Sayuri came back, still walking along slowly, just as before.
Even in the daytime she looked like a woman at the peak of
her beauty in her forties. But all made up in red and white
she looked just like a teradehime princess. On her head she
was wearing something like a crown made of ornamental
hairpins.
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“Sparks and flames shot up. Tamayo stood watching the fire
and Sayuri drew near the horse and then started to dance,
holding her bell and her fan in her hands. Then the horse nodded
its head and started off along with her in the direction of
Otachidote. Tamayo—even if she was a sleepwalker—she knew
that the path led only into the lake. She said that even in daytime
it was scary there, but it was especially bad at night. She’d
heard the stories about the cut-down weeping cherry tree at
the bottom of the dam and she said the place frightened her.
“For us too, it’s no good going there at night.
“I don’t know if Sayuri knew about all that—about how the
mother who gave birth to her died under that weeping cherry
tree. But in any case, when it was cut down the broken tree
and all the remains were like blood. One of the men who
helped cut it down died in an accident soon afterwards.
“But even if she didn’t know about those things, that dam
had all kinds of associations with her mother. Why d’you suppose
she took the horse from that house on the night of the
fire and went to the lake? All those folks who ran over to
Otachidote to watch the fire—they may not know as much
about it as Tamayo, but plenty of ’em saw it.
“They say it was like a scene at the theater. The fire bright
red, silver obi trailing, rouge on her lips. Someone was riding a
horse. You couldn’t see it clearly, but there was something on
the horse.
“The next day the horse returned. The stable and the house
were burned to the ground. Well that’s how Tamayo tells it,
anyway. She must be about ten years old now, I’d guess.”
n
To the people gathered for the wake the events of the fire
the night before and those of Sayuri’s drowning seemed like
strands of one entwined story.
111
The villagers were used to seeing Sayuri with her face powdered.
But going out in the middle of the night of the fire, not
even for prayer—and with her face painted pure white and
with her bells and leading a horse—what could that have been
about?
Tamayo had arrived at the scene of the fire before the embers
cooled. She claimed, “Sayuri came and took Jimpei’s horse.
That was when the fire started.” Because Tamayo told that
story to everyone, some people had felt they should question
Sayuri about what happened when the fire started and so several
of them went looking for her. They checked the prayer hall
attached to her house, but Sayuri hadn’t been there. They realized
that since she couldn’t speak, even if they found her they
probably wouldn’t learn much from questioning her, but still
they might discover something. Jimpei, who had been caught in
the fire, almost died of the burns. And the horse really had
gone off. Perhaps what Tamayo said might have been true.
Tamayo had walked about telling her story to the exhausted
people who’d been up all night on account of the fire and then
had returned to see the burned ruins. Even those who on first
hearing had considered it to be just a child’s tale were now beginning
to take it more seriously and were getting more concerned.
Jimpei’s wife had been completely shaken by it all and
was restlessly glancing around in confusion, hardly able to recognize
the people in front of her.
“The fire balls of the inugami dog spirits, they came and
danced about and set the fire,” was what Jimpei’s wife had
whispered in the ears of the people who came to see her injured
husband. And when they asked what happened to the
horse she replied, “They came to take it from Amazoko. Those
inugami, they’ve been after our family’s horses for the past
three hundred years now. And they picked up Jimpei with
their whirling balls of fire and just carried him off—right into
the middle of the fire.”
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Telling this story the wife gazed at her listeners with eyes
that looked like sunken pits. Many thought to themselves—ah,
Jimpei, he’s already beyond help. At the same time they recalled
old memories of the inugami spirits.
Jimpei had been a leader of the pro-dam faction.
“I was the only one who really faced the Construction Ministry
and the prefecture officials and talked to them directly,”
he’d boasted. And before the compensation money allotments
were decided he had gone around in the night calling on the
families to whom he imagined the payments were going to be
small.
“You know, I have a lot of pull with the prefecture officials,
so I can get you special treatment. But don’t go letting on
about this to the other families.”
This was the sort of thing he was said to have talked about
on his walks and visits.
The old women had spoken in hushed voices with concern
about what would happen to the shrines of the inugami spirits
and to the resting places of Oki no Miya if they were sunken
by the waters of the dam. Since they hadn’t been able to bring
up the subject of the shrines at the village meetings, whenever
they happened to meet this big shot in the street they spoke to
him about it, despite their hesitancy, but he just screwed up
his mouth and dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
“What’s all this fuss about shrines for inugami spirits? It’s
just this sort of superstition that the modernization this dam
represents is aimed at doing away with. The people at the National
Construction Ministry and the prefecture offices, they
won’t put up with listening to such old-fashioned nonsense.
There are too many folks around here who just don’t seem to
get it. In this day and age those things are just eyesores. Just
sink them. Just sink ’em I tell you. If you sink things like that
it’ll clean the place up. Look, it’s not even worth calling this a
problem. Can’t you see I’m too busy for this sort of thing?”
113
This talk had troubled the old women even more, but they
hadn’t had the strength to push the matter. These things, however,
must have weighed heavily in the thoughts of Jimpei’s
wife. And so it must have come about that the inugami spirits
who had been threatening for three hundred years had appeared
in the fire, right before her eyes.
This topic had been making the rounds among the people at
the wake as they got comfortably inebriated. The liveliest
group had formed around the old woman Oshizu, nicknamed
“the trumpet of the treetops.” She was one of those who,
whenever they had time, went up to Otachidote to look at the
bottom of the lake.
“Seems a long time’s gone by without much trouble, with us
just worrying and staring into the water. But now, after all, it’s
happened. After thirty years already.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s really been thirty years . . . You heard
about what happened, didn’t you?”
“Well, I heard plenty of things, but the biggest shock was
seeing Jimpei’s wife there in tears and all, crawling about on all
fours, just howling away like that. I tell you, it really shook me
up.”
“It must’ve been too much for her to take, what with the
house, the stable, and everything else completely burned, and
not being able to help her husband, and Sayuri taking away the
horse and all.”
The horse had gotten back on its own. It made its way
back alone from the dam, feeding on grass along the way. It
must have been surprised to find the stable in ashes. With
no stable to stay in, it had walked about the neighborhood
and made its way to Sayuri’s house, poking its nose inside to
look around, until someone tied it temporarily to a magnolia
tree.
“Wasn’t the horse injured?”
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“Everyone checked to see if it was hurt. If the inugami had
come and ridden the horse with Jimpei, you can be sure it
would’ve been hurt.”
“It doesn’t seem like much happened to it.”
“Yes, but even if you can’t see anything, that doesn’t mean
nothing happened. The horse—with its caretaker gone and its
stable gone—I can hardly imagine it got off completely unscathed.”
“Now hold it a minute. It was Sayuri who led the horse out,
wasn’t it?”
“Well, that’s just the point.”
Among the men and women involved in the discussion it
seemed the one at the center was Oshizu.
“Here’s the way I see it,” she exclaimed decisively. “When
they flooded the place they didn’t carry out any of the proper
rites or follow any of the customs. And I don’t mean just for
the shrines of the inugami spirits, but also for Oki no Miya
Shrine, and for the wells of all the houses too. They went
about it without a thought, as if it was all right to just let the
water rush in. And the worms and the birds’ nests—just think
how many other things there were that had houses there too.
The birds and the butterflies too, all swooping down and
dancing about, all crazy-like. How can anyone take that as
nothing at all?
“When they started letting the water in, just about the time
it began flooding Sosuke’s clover fields, incredible numbers of
caterpillars and crickets rose up from the ground, bubbling up
all over the place. Everyone gasped when they saw it. With
them all floating about on the top of the water like that—it
choked us up to watch it. Even now I can’t forget the sight. And
just think of how—when people way back first built that field—
how they took so much care, holding observances for the insects
and everything.
115
“On a hill in the cemetery there was a stone pagoda with
words written on it, Memorial for the souls of the ten thousand
beings. And when it said it was for the souls of ‘beings,’ that
didn’t mean just the humans. That stone marker on the hill
was dedicated to the souls of all beings—and not just the birds
and insects either; it was also for the souls of the things we
can’t see with our eyes. Our ancestors put it there out of
thanks for all the creatures and beings that helped protect
their village.
“These past years it’s been eating at my heart. And now the
water in the dam has gotten so low, especially with last year’s
drought. I think the village I was born in is still living, but it’s
melting down into the banks of the old river at the bottom.
And now, just when I was thinking something might rise up
from the bottom, it looks like the inugami spirits have showed
up. The visiting places of Oki no Miya Shrine are all buried under
the mud so you can’t even see their remains. If the streams
of water down there get blocked, the life of the mountains
above will be destroyed as well. There’s still something bad to
come—you can count on that. You can imagine how Sayuri
must’ve gotten that way, can’t you, Ohina?”
Ohina, who had just brought in a tea tray, sat down quietly beside
Oshizu. Sayuri—the miko shrine attendant who’d taken over
the duties of looking after Oki no Miya, knowing how much her
mother Oai-san had done to care for the visiting places of the
shrine—was now dead. To Ohina, who had thought of Oai-sama
as her spiritual parent, Sayuri had been like a daughter. Ohina
not only had dragged her aching legs to make two round trips to
the dam since yesterday, but Sayuri’s death affected her so
much that she was quite unsteady on her feet.
Picking up on Oshizu’s words from where she’d left off,
Ohina began speaking in a husky low voice. Masahiko strained
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his ears to listen. It was a voice like that of the ground bugs
he’d heard late last night after he scattered the ashes of his
grandfather’s bones. Compared to Oshizu’s voice, which
tended to fly right out into people’s faces, Ohina’s more covered
voice drew them in to listen.
“There are waterways that run from the mountains to the
seas, passing through all places and lands. But if we in this village
with the name Amazoko abandon Oki no Miya Shrine, the
resting place of the dragon god, it will affect the waterways in
all the other places too. When we ask for rain, where will the
dragon god stop to rest on his travels from the ocean? From old
times this has been the route he’s taken. He stops to rest by Oki
no Miya, then he climbs up to Ontake Peak, and then he calls
on the clouds. If the water didn’t pass through there it would
mean taking away the pathways that connect the sea, the
mountains, and the sky.
“From way back before the time the dam was finished I’ve
been thinking how important the village’s name Amazoko is.
Amazoko means the ‘bottom, or base of heaven.’ This place
was the base of heaven. And what does the word ‘base’ mean?
Doesn’t it mean the foundation of this world of ours, with all
its untold and unfinished works? Why, even an old hag like
myself, I’m grateful to be here. Amazoko—the base of heaven—
this is the place where the foundations of the world have been
entrusted. It’s a fine name.
“If the waterways become clogged up at the resting places
where the gods stop on their travels back and forth between
the mountains and the seas then it will amount to cutting off
their ladder to heaven, won’t it?”
Suddenly Ohina’s voice became choked with tears.
“Last year during the drought I went with Sayuri and we
climbed down to take a look around the bottom of the lake
where the land resurfaced. Looking for Oki no Miya, I also
117
wanted to show her about the weeping cherry tree that was cut
down there.”
Ohina sobbed for a moment and all the other people around
her began to feel their own tears welling up. Everyone knew
the story of how Sayuri’s mother had died beneath that cherry
tree.
“We searched all over for the tree, but it was all covered with
mud. The mud had covered it over about six feet or so. A surveyor
went there and that’s what he told us. There was no way
we could have found it. It must still be there somewhere on the
bottom of the water, all covered with mud.
“If that drought had hung on a little while longer there’s no
telling what might have appeared. You know what sort of person
Sayuri was, so when she couldn’t find the remains of either
Oki no Miya or the cherry tree she seemed terribly dejected.
And so after that in the evenings she took to making up
her face in white, like she’d done at prayer times, carrying her
bell and walking around the banks of the dam.
“Last night, who knows what she was trying to call out for,
or where she planned to go with that horse she was so fond of.
Myself, I was up there with Omomo and we were with the
grandson of the old estate to scatter Masahito’s ashes. It
seemed there was something strange floating about on the far
bank. At that time, I wonder, was Sayuri already dead, or was
she still alive? I couldn’t hear any sounds of a horse.”
It was Tamayo the sleepwalker and several other people
who’d been out walking along the embankment who had seen
Sayuri, lit up by the flames of the fire. They remembered how
she looked leading the horse—how she seemed so different
from others. People had said that her mother, who died beneath
the cherry tree that now lay at the bottom of the dam,
was born in the neighboring town of Oku Hyuga, along the
Mimigawa River. A few of those who were listening to Ohina’s
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story wondered if Sayuri might not have been directly related
to the inugami spirits. But no one had spoken of it openly.
When Sayuri went to the village meetings she had always left
her face natural, without any make up. Whether she understood
the discussions that went on there or not, she never seemed to
mind carrying out the job of serving tea, as if it were her own
appointed role. And even if she had passed the age of forty, the
graceful sight of her shoulders and the nape of her neck caught
everyone’s attention. When the men amused each other and
told jokes the women kept an eye on what they were up to. The
women often met in the house with the attached prayer hall
that Oai-sama had built after the village was flooded and there
they listened to lectures about Kannon and held festivals for the
moon. Perhaps this had been partly out of concern for Sayuri,
whose mother had died and who had been left alone.
Oshizu had been watching the young man from Tokyo who
was related to the old Silk Estate. Since he hadn’t turned toward
her she devised a pretext and carried a small tapered cup
and a sake decanter with a thin neck shaped like a crane. With
a gentle look she nudged her way in alongside him.
“So you’ve come back here for O-bon, have you? And you
even did a memorial ceremony out by the lake. That’s very
kind of you. I imagine you must have been quite surprised.”
Never having even spoken to this old woman who had just
edged her way in to sit by him, Masahiko wasn’t sure how to
deal with the situation.
“Well, yes, I guess so.”
Blinking his eyes as if startled, he broke into an embarrassed
laugh. He realized he’d gotten a bit drunk.
With people continually saying things such as “you must
have been so surprised,” and “it must have been some kind of
fate,” it seemed that no matter what they said now he wouldn’t
be able to take it in.
119
“Well, it look’s like this guy’s drunk his fill already.”
Oshizu, showing disappointment, urged the shochu on the
others and helped herself to it as well. The stewed vegetables
known as otoki that were served at the wake tasted particularly
good. In Tokyo there wasn’t anything like this. Having been
initiated into drinking shochu the night before, he had accepted
the drinks poured for him by the bearded man seated
next to him. Omomo carried in a huge plate heaped with the
stewed vegetables and bowed politely. She appeared to be
working particularly hard.
“You must be pretty hungry.”
“Ah, thanks for yesterday.”
He didn’t know where to begin his reply, as there were so
many things that had happened to him. While Omomo moved
about as she took care of the guests, it seemed she was keeping
her attention on Masahiko. But when she sat down right in
front of him, he found that the intimacy of the night before
somehow fled and he felt himself just sitting there stiffly, as if
they were meeting for the first time. He thought; I’ve been
wanting to say something to her when she comes, and yet now
my body is shaking.
Probably the apparent change in her appearance from the
day before was due to her being dressed in a simple white
dress, instead of the red T-shirt she’d worn then. Since they
were taking part in a wake it was only natural to dress more
formally, yet it seemed a little surprising to find this rather
wild-spirited woman looking so neat and proper.
Omomo was gazing rather blankly at the large plate of food
she had brought in. But then, as if suddenly snapping back
into attention, she reached with her chopsticks and dished out
some big triangular pieces of fried and boiled tofu.
“All right, here you are. Could you just pass your plate over
this way for me please.”
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Though a bit formal, still her voice retained that soft quality
he had heard yesterday. Now that’s the voice I wanted to
hear. For the first time Masahiko felt relieved. Just at that moment
a man’s voice called out beside him.
“Hey there Omomo—looks like you’re serving the best of the
cooking to our young gentleman!”
Omomo immediately changed her tone of voice and replied.
“This is food for the vigil tonight. So Goro, how about some
tofu for you too. Here you go.”
“Well, I suppose if you’re twisting my arm, I must. OK then,
all right.”
“Say Omomo, it’s been ages. How about a little something
for me too?”
“All right. All right. Here’s some konyaku for you.”
“Well, now how about that? Looks like she still remembers.
She gave me my favorite.”
It must have been on account of her talk with these men
that Masahiko’s impression of Omomo had changed from that
of the day before. Her quick-witted way of dealing with these
old men aroused a new interest in him. But just when it
seemed he might get a chance to talk with her, now with this
sort of conversation going on he couldn’t easily get started.
Perhaps this sort of atmosphere was what the priest had been
talking about when he spoke of wakes as being festive occasions.
n
Raising his glass from time to time the older man on the left
nodded his head, following along with Ohina’s story. This was
the one called Chiyomatsu, who had been giving the directions
about what to do with Sayuri’s body back in the daytime by the
bush-covered banks of the dam.
121
At that time he had called out to Masahiko. “Say, could you
by any chance be related to the family of the old Silk Estate?
You look so similar. Do you mind my asking?”
In this place too the old man seemed a bit reserved, yet when
he sat down next to him without saying a word for some reason
Masahiko felt relieved. While the conversation was loosening
up it seemed that a group of quiet elders had been gathering
around this slightly built old man. Perhaps it was a group of the
most senior of the men. Masahiko hadn’t noticed it, but he’d
been given the seat of honor as he was the guest who had come
from the farthest distance. Sliding on her knees, Ohina made
her way over and bowed deeply to the elders. Old Chiyomatsu
spoke to Ohina in a deeply consoling tone of voice.
“Thank you for saying that. Sayuri’s death has been hard on
us all. Amazoko is a village that has a special responsibility. I
share the same feelings toward it as you.”
Ohina glanced intently at the old man and, her eyes suddenly
welling up in tears, broke out into a smile. What a gentle
expression, Masahiko thought.
“Thank you so much Chiyomatsu. I felt so sad, my words
just spilled out from my heart.”
“Well I think all of us feel pretty much that way too. You
spoke for us all.”
The row of elders nodded their heads together in agreement.
“I’ve been talking about the things we’ve been taught for a
long time.”
Together the elders nodded and then a man in his fifties at
the end of the line began to speak.
“Ohina, you’re our bridge between this world and that
world. Even after we die we depend on your help. But who’s
going to go first—that’s something we can’t know.”
“That’s the truth. We can never know who’s going first.”
From another group a woman’s voice could be heard; “Even
tonight or tomorrow morning we might find another messenCHAPTER
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OKI NO MIYA
ger of the dead.” It seemed to Masahiko that people were
speaking of Jimpei as if he were already dead.
Chiyomatsu added, “You know, all day long today, I don’t
know why but for some reason it seems I keep recalling that
time we went up Mt. Ontake.”
“Ah, that time—it’s the same for me too.”
The quiet group of elders seemed to be warming up to talk.
“Oai-sama and Sayuri really showed their strength that
time, didn’t they.”
“That time they did the ceremonies and prayed for rain, that
was quite a dry spell we went through.”
Ohina’s eyes were narrowing into a half-open state, as if she
had suddenly recalled something.
“Yes, that time. Oai-sama poured her whole life into it. She
fasted and transferred her soul completely to Sayuri; I know
what they did. And Sayuri, even if she couldn’t speak, she understood
completely what was going on and how Oai-sama
poured her entire being into it. The two of them, together they
performed the misogi purification rites at Isara River. But now
that Isara River, it’s down there too at the bottom of the dam.”
Suddenly Ohina’s words sank into silence. Everyone’s
thoughts must have been wandering around the bottom of the
dam. They seemed to be hearing the sounds of water. It was a
soft murmuring sound that emanated from the smallest of the
streams of water all about Amazoko. The silence flowed on.
Masahiko recalled a scene from the twilight of the previous
night. A verse of song came back to life in his ears.
Yaa
Hôre yaa
Sixteenth night of O-bon
Flowers of the moon
Scattering, scattering
The evening of flowers
123
Through the open sliding door he gazed at the empty garden.
A moon was perched between the trees. Whatever kind of
trees they were, their black branches were all woven into the
sky. Last night was the sixteenth night of O-bon. Ohina had
said that the banks of the Isara River, where Oai-sama had performed
the misogi rites to pray for water, had been mostly
“melted away.” Even for Masahiko, who had never seen what
the old village had looked like, this state of affairs seemed
wrong. Ohina’s voice crept into his ears.
“Oai-sama once talked about how it was a strange drought
and how it might have been a sign of something bad to come.
That was still long before all the talk of the dam started. She
spoke of how, of late, the children she’d given birth to didn’t
seem to come back very much. And even when they did, she
could no longer see the black pupils in their eyes seated stably.
She wondered what had happened. It seemed their souls had
been stolen. Their faces seemed to have become different from
those of the villagers. It was as if they’d washed off all the dust
of the countryside with the water of the city and become sophisticated.
She didn’t feel good about it at all. ‘I wonder,’ she
had said, ‘do they really think it’s so wonderful to become a
city person?’
“And it’s not just in Amazoko. Even in the villages way off in
the back reaches of the mountains, the people who go off to
the cities don’t come back. And then the fields and mountains
go untended and wild and nonhumans come in. Sometimes
new people like those Kishu charcoal makers come in and stir
things up for a while, but they don’t stay.”
“Right. And Oai-sama used to talk about that ‘French Mountain’
over there, and all the noise they kicked up from the engines
of their motorcycles running up and down the mountainsides.
That was back in the days before we had motorcycles
here.”
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“Yeah, right. I heard all about it—back at the end of the Meiji
days, it was—and how that French outfit bought up the mountain.”
“Right—that’s the mountain where they had the riots. I
heard stories about that too. They put in some sort of French
lumber mill at the foot of the mountain and it made such a
racket, no one could stand it. That stuff was what led to all the
landslides and forest fires. And it never got any better after
that. The gods of the mountains must not have been able to
stand it. Even the local people rarely climbed such a far-off
mountain.”
“Sure, those mountain gods mustn’t have been able to stand
it. Red-roofed cars, blue-roofed cars, all lined up. The windows
all shiny. Glass windows. And bringing in all those machines, it
was like some sort of witchcraft, magic. And suddenly cutting
down all those trees of the gods, one after another. Just cutting
and toppling them over like that. And then running those motorcycles
around all over the place. The mountain was screaming
with the ruckus everywhere. And then the big floods hit.”
“It went on all through the mountains—even way off in the
areas where the yamabushi monks who passed through the
back reaches of the forests did their practices—back where not
even an ax had ever been brought in before. That was back
even before they put in the railroad.”
“And then the sightseers started coming in with their picnic
lunches. I heard about it from old Keisuke who’s dead now. At
the end of those troubles the landslides came and washed everything
away. That foreign project flowered in vain. Keisuke heard
all about it from his friends among the charcoal workers.”
Ohina spoke up to resume her story.
“Oai-sama talked about those things too. She said, ‘The city
is a flower that blossoms in vain, and that French Mountain
was the start of it all. One time some of the villagers went to
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see what was going on and it couldn’t be stopped. But when
they got back home they realized that right here in Amazoko
we have all the five grains, and that our souls are at peace
here, and for that reason we should maintain the village without
changing it.
“We have the mountains for gathering firewood and making
charcoal, and buckwheat and millet to harvest, and mushrooms
to gather too. As long as we in Amazoko live by relying
on ourselves we can maintain the things we’ve enjoyed
through the ages. And for this reason, Oki no Miya, the place
the waterways meet, is essential—what do you think Ohina?
Those people who go off to the city and eat only white rice—
do you think they remember the tastes of all the grains of
Amazoko? That white rice is no good for their bodies. When
they run off and become city folks they lose the ability to hear
the voices of the gods.
“‘Amazoko doesn’t even have many rice fields, so we’ve gotten
by on millet and other grains and grasses. And actually
that’s better. Our babies are strong and healthy. I’ve been a
midwife and delivered babies here so I know these things. And
if that girl was born beneath the weeping cherry, then she’s a
child of Amazoko. I’ve done my best to bring up Sayuri,’—that
was what Oai-sama told me.”
Ohina’s voice choked up.
“I can’t help feeling I’ve failed Oai-sama. Sayuri-san—tying
on that obi . . . that obi was her only connection to her hometown
on the Mimigawa River. And now, she’s dead. I . . .”
Hanging her head in dejection, Ohina reached out with her
hand. Coiling the ends of her hair that fell in limp strings on
her thin shoulders, she let out a deep sigh. Seeing Ohina looking
that way, the elders fell into silence.
Hearing Ohina say the words, “tying on that obi,” right in
front of him, Masahiko was taken aback. He felt something rifCHAPTER
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fling about in his mind, like some sort of air turbulence. He
felt that in the present circumstances he couldn’t just come
out and say that this was the same obi he’d seen in his dream
this morning when he saw the back of that girl. The obi that
was wrapped about Sayuri’s dead body when she was raised
out of the water had been stained with a smoky dark color of
water. He hadn’t realized that the material was an authentic
piece of the finest shuchin silk, but from seeing its refined, subdued
luster he could tell that it was a fabric of great elegance
and refinement.
But then, what of that dream he’d woken to this morning? It
couldn’t have been—and yet . . . It seemed things were getting
stranger and stranger. He wanted to ask Ohina what she
thought about it, but surrounded by the glances of the elders,
and with Ohina looking so dejected now, he didn’t feel he
could bring up the story of his dream here. Perhaps feeling
concerned about this mood, Oshizu got up again and drew
closer, sliding on her knees.
“It looks like I’m going to have to look after that boy.”
Holding a glass in hand she remarked,
“This is a beautiful liquor here. It’s really delicious. They say
it’s made from mountain peaches and strawberries. We only
serve it to special guests.”
He was beginning to feel like trying a bit of this liquor now—
the one he’d been turning down. Perhaps if he got a little
drunk on it he’d be able to continue that dream. The glass he
was poured held the fragrance of the fruit of mountain trees,
and as he drank it seeped down deep through his entire body.
“All right, that’s the spirit now—drink up! Say, let’s have another
round here.”
The men were used to Oshizu’s manner of entertaining
guests. In an instant the tense atmosphere seemed to lighten up
and then someone spoke up to change the topic of conversation.
127
“You remember that time Ohina offered the prayer song to
the Buddha in thanks for the rains? We all danced together.”
“That’s right. Oai-sama asked for it.”
“We asked too. That was no ordinary happening that year.”
“That year we lost a lot of people. Three died.”
“When it gets too hot or too cold we lose a lot.”
“Right. That year just at O-bon, all through the night, starting
from the houses of the dead, we went around from house
to house doing the nembutsu dance for Amida Buddha to console
their souls.”
“Old Kirihito-san the song leader—how many years has he
been gone now?—he had a great voice and he accompanied
Ohina’s songs so well. He used to sing all through the night.
And he danced too, with all his soul.”
“Right, right. The people in his group said his dancing that
time was like he’d gone off into a dream land and was dancing
in a place somewhere off beyond this world.”
“Today we hardly ever offer prayers for rain and now the
water at the bottom of the dam’s gotten all mucked up. That
can’t be a good sign, that sort of thing.”
Could the people of Amazoko really see the water at the
bottom of the dam? Come to think of it, this morning when
Masahiko looked at the bottom of the dam it appeared agitated
and he had thought this was because of Sayuri’s obi.
“You came from Tokyo for Sayuri’s night attendance.”
Hearing Oshizu say this, he wondered if her mention of a
“night attendance” referred to the wake. The words struck him
as coming from a distant age.
“It’s a shame none of us attended Masahito’s funeral. What
with Tokyo being so huge and all, even Ohina didn’t go.”
With her eyes cast downward and her head bowed down
showing the back of her neck, Ohina made no reply. Masahiko
looked on the silent Ohina with fondness. His family hadn’t
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even sent a funeral announcement to the old village his grandfather
had long ago turned his back on. No one here had even
been told of it. Looking about, he wondered where Omomo
was. Perhaps in the kitchen, washing dishes or something. She
must have been looking after Oshizu and the other elders.
“We thought no one from your family would ever come
back, but now with the village sunk at the bottom it seems
you’ve come after all.”
So old women get drunk too, he mused. Masahiko stared at
Oshizu. Suddenly, right in front of him, she raised one of her
elbows above the opening in the sleeve of her kimono with a
gesture that looked just like that of a praying mantis. Then she
opened her mouth and let out a laugh.
“All right—now it looks like he’s put some color back into his
face. Looks just like Masahito when he was young—don’t you
think, Ohina?”
But Ohina wasn’t there. She had gotten up quickly and left.
People were now moving in closer and slapping each other on
the back. The sake vessel with the crane-shaped neck lay on
the tatami. Someone’s foot had caught on it and knocked it
over. This sort of scene was waving about in Masahiko’s eyes.
Masahiko looked up at the walls and ceiling. It appeared to
be a very old temple. Its construction was different from that
of the ordinary houses of the villagers. He tried to recall something.
Yes—there had been a name marker, with golden characters
written on black lacquer—certainly there had.
The words read;
For the recitation, in perpetuity, of sutras for our ancestors— the
sum of 20,000 yen. Mikihiko Aso. Amazoko Village.
Mikihiko was the name of his great-great grandfather. Certainly
he had never thought he would find the name Mikihiko
in a temple such as this. It had been written before the flooding
of the village. Sixty years before, or maybe seventy. How
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much had 20,000 yen meant at that time? It conveyed both an
air of ostentatiousness and a sense of emptiness.
The name marker had become detached from the wall and
appeared to be drifting about. Could it be that this place was
already at the bottom of the water?
A deep voice called out to him, and then he was clapped on
the shoulder. “Well now, our young Tokyo gentleman—you really
put in a day’s work, didn’t you. Don’t you feel better now,
after some of our special wine?”
It was the bearded man, the one who’d spoken the words to
the dead body—“Sayuri, everyone’s here now. So let’s get you
down to the temple,”—back when they had carried the
stretcher from the banks of the dam.
“Since you’ve taken the trouble to come here and spend this
night with us, you have to register yourself as a member of the
Amazoko Citizens’ Council—Masahiko-shan.”
The man’s face had turned bright red, and the grave expression
he’d shown earlier in the day now looked friendly. It
was the first time Masahiko had ever been addressed with the
intimate form “Masahiko-shan.” The feeling it gave him was
not at all bad.
“Is there such a thing as the Amazoko Citizens’ Council?”
“I just made it up now. Why, up in Tokyo you have citizens’
councils, don’t you? What I’ve made here isn’t something way
off in Tokyo. It’s at the bottom of the water. The Citizens’
Council of Amazoko, at the bottom of the water. Pretty good
name, don’t you think? And for you, making it here all the way
from Tokyo, I hereby designate you Original Founder Number
Two. How’s that?”
“Me—a founder?”
“Come on, don’t talk like a fool. You’re already drunk on Oshizu’s
seven-flavored wine?”
The bearded man laughed with his whole body shaking.
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“Come on now, drink up. You have all the qualifications of a
founder. Wasn’t it your family who was the first to run off from
the town of its birth? The very oldest family. Isn’t it always the
ones who’ve left their hometowns—the ones who’ve lost their
birthplaces—who start up these associations? So you must
have better credentials than anyone else.”
“But I . . .”
“Come on, talk some sense, won’t you? That slow—yeah that
slow way of talking of yours, I kind of like it. Sure, you have all
the credentials you need for a Citizen of the Depths.”
“Well, I do have a feeling the waters at the base of the dam
are swaying around.”
n
Masahiko woke to a cool breeze that covered his body like a
stream of flowing water
“Ah, you’re awake?”
The reserved-sounding voice came from a woman he didn’t
know.
“Excuse me, the door was open.”
He sat up. The woman bowed and left the room.
He shook his head and thought. Where am I? Who was that
woman? The room was so bright. Beyond the corridor flowers
were swaying. Those are cosmos—even I know cosmos. Beyond
the garden was a high hedge. Ah, that’s the same tree as the
one at the Philosophy Hall in Nakano. But this isn’t a house in
Nakano. He began to recall the events of the previous night.
Ah, that’s right—I carried a body from the lake. This is the temple—there’s
incense in the air.
The sharp shriek of a bird sounded. Masahiko didn’t recognize
it as the call of a shrike. A yellow cat jumped up lightly
onto the porch. It stared at Masahiko, stretched out, raised its
head and then lay down—an amazingly long-bodied cat. Again
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the cosmos swayed about. It seemed both the cat and he himself
had been sleeping there for ages. While sleeping it had
seemed that a voice from a sutra had been flowing in and out
of his dreams, time and time again.
“Why don’t you go with us to the place the bodies are cremated?”
A pleasantly familiar voice had filled his ears again. It was
the voice of the bearded man. Masahiko was clapped on the
back by a big hand.
“These days we put fuel oil on them, so they burn a lot faster
than in the old days.”
He remembered replying that he would go. Would he really
go—to the place where they burned bodies?
From the previous day sometimes it had seemed as if he had
crawled into the center of an enormous tree. He felt as if his
blood had been assimilated into the sap of the tree and it was
flowing through the tree from the trunk to the tips of its
leaves. He could feel its roots searching out the little trickles of
water. The smell of the rocks and stones filled his nose.
He got up, gathering some of the bedding about him. Suddenly
he felt his breathing constrict. He stamped his foot and
then shook out the bedding and folded it up.
“Pardon me, I’ve woken you so early. Shall I put away your
bedding? Oh my . . .”
It was the same woman he’d seen before. I can’t remember
coming to this room last night. I guess I must have been drunk.
I wonder how I got into this room to sleep. The cat raised its
head, gave an annoyed blink and then went back to sleep.
“Ah, excuse me, your lunch is ready. You can wash your face
here.”
The woman returned and pointed.
“Your biwa is over there.”
The instrument had been placed standing up in the
tokonoma.
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“Do you play the biwa?”
“Well, yes,” he replied vaguely.
She seemed older than Omomo. Her skin shone. Now he remembered—this
was the young wife at the temple. Back when
he helped carry Sayuri’s body and came to the temple, this was
the woman who had seen the biwa on his back and held out
her hand and then withdrawn it.
“Carrying something like that on your back, along with the
dead body—that must have been quite difficult.”
“Well not really. Along the way, Ohina carried it for me.”
Suddenly the woman’s face grew suspicious. He avoided going
into the matter further. He was starved to the point it felt
he was about to faint.
“This persimmon is from Ohina.”
On a tray, some salted umeboshi plums, a cup of green tea,
and a peeled persimmon had been placed.
“Ohina said these are good for hangovers. They’re supposed
to help you get over it. They’re the first of the season. Her
daughter brought them here.”
He tried to rouse himself, but his head was still reeling.
“It looks like you overdid it a bit. But with everyone making
you drink like that it’s not surprising. Here, have some tea, and
some umeboshi too.”
She waited for him to finish drinking the tea before asking,
“Is Ohina a friend of yours? And Omomo-chan?”
He answered that they had known his grandfather. He
didn’t mention that he hadn’t known them until two days ago.
He recalled the scene of Utazaka Hill, with the sky and the
branches of the persimmon.
“Ah, that persimmon . . . probably it’s still not quite ripe. It
might be a bit sour,” she added, drawing in her breath. “The persimmon
may be all right, but for a hangover umeboshi are best.”
The warmth of the thick futon had been so pleasant but
now, suddenly, he felt pulled back into reality. It seemed the
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woman was a bit put out by the fact that the persimmon had
been brought by Ohina and Omomo.
“Please, why don’t you try some?”
He took an umeboshi and put it in his mouth. This seemed to
put the woman into a better mood and she stood up with a smile.
“Your lunch is ready over there.”
Perhaps because he’d eaten the salty umeboshi plum first,
when he bit into the crisp, not quite ripe persimmon it tasted
delicious.
Moving into the large room set up with individual ozen tables,
he found there was food on one table only. Women were
busy cleaning up. He must have slept a long time.
“Momo-chan—why don’t you fix something to eat for that
fellow from the old Silk Estate,” called out one of the women.
From the kitchen Omomo called back, “You must be tired
from all your work yesterday,” and then she came out wearing
a white apron and knelt on the floor.
Unaccustomed to such a greeting from Omomo, as it
sounded like that of a country housewife, Masahiko cleared his
throat uneasily. Feeling like a young kid who doesn’t know the
ways of the world, he realized the women were straining their
ears and listening.
“Please eat as much as you can.”
He was surprised by the bowl that was given to him. It was
piled with so much rice he wondered what the women might
be up to. Noticing his perplexed look, the women broke out
into laughter.
“My goodness, I haven’t seen anything like this in ages. It’s a
feast for a Buddha of old. I guess it must be a surprise for this
young man from Tokyo.”
Omomo also broke out into a laugh.
“You’re right. It certainly is a feast fit for a Buddha. Not a
bad farewell dinner for Sayuri, I’d say.”
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Masahiko raised and lowered the black lacquered bowl as if
it were quite heavy and then he slowly picked up his chopsticks.
The women approved of his manners. Setting out the
various dishes of cooked and pickled foods they remarked, “Oh
my, Momo-chan.”
Outside in the yard straw mats had been set out and men
were busy with various tasks. Some were cutting out shapes of
horses and flowers from white paper. Others were stripping
the green coating off lengths of bamboo. Still others were sawing
planks. And as he watched, a fresh wood coffin was constructed
right before his eyes.
“There were several generations of Mikihikos, but anyone
who saw their funerals will tell you they sent the dead off in
coffins they made themselves. At the time of the funeral of
the last of the Mikihikos I was still only nineteen, but I sure
learned a lot from the old people about how to do a funeral.”
The elder Chiyomatsu, seated on the veranda watching how
the work was proceeding, spoke to them from time to time.
Masahiko had been watching the men’s activities with only
mild interest, but when he heard the talk about Mikihiko’s coffin
he was pulled back to attention.
All the men and women had their own tasks and it appeared
they were fully enjoying their work. All sorts of talk went on,
but Masahiko couldn’t catch more than a fraction of it.
“In the old days, half the men went off to dig the graves, but
now that the graveyard’s at the bottom of the lake the work of
grave digging has fallen off. Nowadays the bodies are cremated
so it’s gotten easier, but the dead must think our compassion
has grown weak.
“I’m with you there,” another elder broke in. “In those days
when we carried the coffin and laid it into the opening in the
ground it always seemed there was something special about
the weight. It’s hard to explain. Even though it was a dead
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body it felt like it had the weight of a person. When we laid
people’s bodies into the grave I felt they’d fulfilled their roles
in this world. I felt I too had played a small part in it. But what
with burning the bodies these days, and using oil, and the
sound and all—well, it just doesn’t sit right.”
Even amidst the conversations, when one of the elders said
something the others strained their ears so as not to miss anything.
And the mention of the unpleasant sounds of the crematory
brought an immediate reaction from old Oshizu-san
who came over, still eating and holding a rice scoop.
“That burning sound really gets to me too. There’s not even
enough time for a farewell. It just isn’t right.”
“She’s right,” another woman added quickly, “After dressing
it up so nice in robes for sending it along, and then with that
sound of burning oil, it just doesn’t give a decent send-off for
the dead.”
Other than the elders, the only one not involved in the work
was Masahiko. Sitting on the verandah, he looked at the palms
of his hands. They were an unblemished white. His fingernails
were long and slightly soiled. He hid his hands behind his back
and for a while there was silence.
Could it be that everyone was hearing the sounds of the
burning oil at the time of their own deaths? The sounds from
the crematory were not right for the dead of Amazoko. When
Amazoko people were laid out in robes of white it was only
proper that they should pass over Moonshadow Bridge by
Otachidote Embankment, and over the Isara River, and then
head off into the mountain mists. No doubt this was what the
old men and women must have been thinking. To be disposed
of in an oil-fired oven, at the flick of a switch—even if the body
had already become a soul—it just wasn’t right.
“In the old days,” Chiyomatsu began, “when a person died,
everyone took special care in preparing the way for the soul’s
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journey over the bridge. They helped send the person along as
it crossed over on its way.”
Oshizu spoke in a voice almost panting, “We had them wear
white leggings on their feet and coverings on their hands, and
we had them take dumplings for the deceased, and a coin
purse. We checked to make sure nothing had been overlooked:
Were all the children there? Had all the lanterns been prepared?—we
told the children to be sure to take them all. Had
the children eaten the dumplings?—if they didn’t chew the
dumplings they’d be taken along with the dead person.
One by one the women began to speak out.
“That’s right. When a dead person left, sometimes a child
might be taken along with it too. That’s why we checked for
marks of flour around the children’s mouths, to make sure
they’d eaten the dumplings.”
Chiyomatsu broke into the discussion again.
“All the children stood at the front with the lanterns and the
young people’s group held a banner for the departed. That was
the kind of procession they made to send off the departed
souls.”
“That was the procession for the day of the soul’s departure.
The children carried lanterns and pounded out rice to make
Omaimo-sama’s dumplings and they spread pebbles they’d
gathered at the Isara River around the building at the cemetery.”
“Yes, and in Amazoko even after a death there was a road for
going out and a road to return by.”
“And they spread the message of the dead—‘We’re sending
off Sayuri. Tonight is her wake. Even the crows, and the cows
and horses, and the dogs and cats know it’s the day of her passing.
Their voices are different.’”
“The crows and dogs went too and returned over Moonshadow
Bridge.”
137
“I wonder if the water’s still flowing there now.”
“The water where?”
“What do you mean ‘where?’—under Moonshadow Bridge,
of course.”
“Ah, the Isara River. Now everything’s down there at the
bottom of the lake.”
“It’s strange, but if you look to the bottom the lost world
seems to come back to life.”
“Certainly there’s a world that did exist.”
“There are still signs of it here and there.”
“The branches of the ginkgo trees and horse chestnuts are
swaying in circles and reaching out with their sinewy hands.
They’re signaling and calling us from the depths of the lake.”
“Yes. They’re calling us. Back that time when the water
dried up I went and looked and it really surprised me, what I
saw. The big ginkgo was bending over and raising its skinny
arms from its side.”
“When you think of it, in the old days in Amazoko we had
everything we needed.”
“That’s right. From miso to sake to everything we needed for
the festivals, we could get them all at the straw sandal shop.”
“The only things we couldn’t get there were salt and fish
from the ocean.”
“And we didn’t have gambling either.”
“Once the dam construction started, the gambling came in.”
“Yeah, at that little shack. I heard they’d just been let out of
jail and they brought the gambling with them. That’s how I
heard it got started.”
“That guy Santaro. He was the first to start up the gambling.”
“Yeah, he’s the one who comes to mind as the guy who
started it.”
“I wonder where he is now.”
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“Followed the older ones who taught him their tricks—how
to screw folks out of their money.”
“That’s where most of the compensation money went.”
Suddenly the talk fell into silence as the people were caught
up in thinking back on the rumors about that swindler who
had made off with the fortunes of the old estate.
A woman in her fifties made her way into the midst of the
group.
“It looks like Sayuri may be the last to get a proper funeral
like this.”
“If Sayuri’s the last one then it looks like the rest of us are
headed for that oil incinerator. We won’t even be able to have
our little chat with the old king of the underworld.”
At this everyone laughed and brightened up.
“Hey, let’s knock off thinking like this. Everything that happens
is a sort of practice. If you’ve gone through training for
hell once, what happens afterwards is easy.”
The bearded man spoke with a serious intensity.
The younger priest’s wife came in after Omomo and started
preparing tea.
“Well, it looks like things are starting to liven up. Here, have
some tea, won’t you? The priest said that when you’re finished
making the lanterns we can head off for the cremation.”
“All right, all right. We’ll be finished soon. This bearded guy
here knows all the stories about hell. Seems he’s proud of it.”
The priest’s wife watched the man as she handed out the
teacups.
“Yeah, I guess I know about it pretty well by now—I’ve been
there and back a few times.”
Everyone knew the story of how this fellow had gotten
drunk on shochu and walked along the top of the dam construction
site and fallen. Even though he’d hit an iron construction
rod and gotten skewered all the way through his
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body from his rear end to his neck, he’d been saved by good
fate. They all regarded it as a stroke of special luck.
“Myself, I don’t take any particular pride in it. It was just
that one time. It was the first time in my life I was in the papers.
They didn’t mention anything about the iron rod though.
People came from all over to see me after they read about it.”
Everyone could imitate that tone of voice of his, and whenever
they’d had enough of his telling this story someone would
mimic and tease him.
“On and on about your getting into the papers—don’t you
think we’ve heard enough of it already? You were about to
land in the obituary column.”
Everyone had been prepared for Kappei to launch into that
old story again today, but somehow it didn’t come up. Always
at the close of his story he used to tell of how Sayuri had
come—“dressed as a shrine maiden, beautiful as a wisteria
flower”—and prayed for his recovery. He believed it was owing
to her care that he had been called back from the depths of
hell and so he always spoke of her as his Kannon, his savior.
n
About the time the sutra reading for the departure of the
procession from the temple came to an end, it began to cloud
over. Looking up, people pointed to the sky and wondered.
“I guess we should be able to make it back before it starts to
rain.”
“Compared to carrying her down the mountain, taking her
to be cremated should be easier. So let’s get moving.”
But as the body turned out to be heavier than expected they
added extra carriers to help out. And still others, the children
and the women, joined the procession carrying lanterns and
incense.
Before they started off, Chiyomatsu gave a greeting.
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“Well, it seems that with Sayuri this may be the last funeral
like this. Every one of our families is indebted to her. It may be
hard on you who carry the coffin, but let’s get started. These
days funerals have become such stiff city-style affairs and the
body of the departed is whisked away in a hearse so quickly we
hardly even have a chance to take a decent last look.”
The women all nodded as they stood in place. Since it had
been agreed that it wouldn’t do for Masahiko to be dressed in
the same clothes he’d arrived in, he was given the elderly
priest’s formal kimono and a robe with the family crest. It
seemed that the others who wore robes with family crests were
the leading men. There were five or six of them. On seeing
Masahiko changed from wearing a T-shirt to a formal kimono,
the women made quite a stir. One of the elderly women
gasped, “Oh my goodness. It looks just like he’s come back.”
Ohina was also among them, but she held her breath as she
looked on and gently wiped her brow. The procession began to
move forward. Along the paths among the fields the grasses
and heavy-laden ears of rice were swaying. Slowly the group
moved along, following the pace of the women and children.
“All the fields are ripe and full.”
“Such beautiful fields.”
“In the old days Sayuri prayed and danced here for the rains
so many times.”
With eyes narrowed as he gazed at the colors of the rice, and
his voice choked with tears, one of the men said, “If she could
see these beautiful fields now she’d be so happy—but she’s
gone.”
“Her soul may still be nearby, so she may be watching the
fields now.”
Dressed in mourning clothes and wearing white tabi socks, the
women were walking along the grassy path, stepping with graceful
movements that differed from the way they walked when
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they were working. The soft gentle earth felt different from
when they worked the fields. With each step, they felt from the
soles of their feet that they were walking along a special path.
“This is a quite a funeral, Sayuri. Everyone has turned out
to send you off.”
With her chin partly hidden in the collar of her kimono, Oshizu
spoke out softly, “Yes, it really is a wonderful funeral. It
looks like the funerals from now on are going to seem pretty
lacking in spirit.”
“I’m glad I could come.”
“Yes, it’s for times like this that we make these mourning
clothes.”
The women complimented each other on their clothing. A
cool breeze rose up, ruffling the hems of their kimonos. With
their hems held up the women revealed legs of uncommon elegance.
“Ohina, what have you been up to these days?”
Called out to from behind, Ohina turned around. It was the
younger priest’s wife.
“What have I been up to? My usual work. Why?”
“Ah, catching snakes. Have you been getting many?”
Ohina’s eyes blinked as if she were trying to pull herself
back into the conversation. She replied, “Hardly any.”
“They say most people can’t catch any at all.”
Oshizu rebuked her; “Tsunako-san, this is no time to talk
about that, at a funeral. We’ve all had enough already.”
“I didn’t mean anything special. I was just asking.”
“Well then don’t go asking needless questions. There are
times for bringing up things, and times it’s not called for.”
The younger priest’s wife waved her fan back and forth and
turned aside. A heavy fragrance wafted from her fan. Oshizu,
making a slight gesture of fanning herself with her handkerchief,
stepped up beside Ohina.
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“Thanks for all your help from yesterday.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. It was no trouble.”
“That obi—do you know what happened to it?”
“Well, I thought we should put it in with the coffin, but on
second thought I kept it.”
“Seems it might have been better to have put it in with her,
doesn’t it? I couldn’t decide either. It would really bother me
to have it left behind.”
“I thought we could take care of it at any time, so I left it
hanging on the sal tree. I thought someone would think of it.”
“It’s probably because of that obi that I can’t forget the time
she prayed for rain.”
“Were you there too, Oshizu?”
“Certainly I was there. Why even now I can still see it. But
where’s that sal tree—the one the obi was left hanging on?”
Oshizu’s tone of voice dropped suddenly. Tsunako had
stopped waving her fan but now she started up again, as if
nothing had happened.
“It was on a tree near Sayuri’s prayer hall.”
“Well, I hope so.”
The old woman nodded twice. At the temple also there was
a sal tree with a trunk that glistened. Oshizu’s words implied
that if the obi had been left at the temple, Ohina probably
would be reprimanded.
The night before, the leading women had washed and prepared
Sayuri’s body for the funeral. They cleaned and purified
it, dressed it in white robes, and prepared it for its journey.
“Ohina-san, please,” one of them had said as the comb was
passed and Ohina was brushing out Sayuri’s long hair. Normally
when the women met they were talkative, but this time
they all had been silent.
“She looks so different . . .”
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“All her color and luster are gone,” Oshizu remarked sorrowfully.
With brusque movements the women combed out her hair
and poured hot water on it. Sayuri’s hair moved along with the
water and became slightly tangled in the mat made of rough
bamboo straw.
“If you just look at her hair it still looks like she’s alive.”
With a sigh someone said, “She was a shrine maiden. No
perms or hairdos for her. Such beautiful hair.”
After the men had set out the straw mats and erected a circular
enclosure in the yard in back of the temple they hadn’t looked
at the area where the women were washing and preparing the
body. At a quick glance, Masahiko had been able to see smoke
from the incense and steam rising upward from the circle, but he
couldn’t hear much of the conversation going on within.
He heard someone call out, “Salt, salt,” and then the women
covered their hands with the smoke of the incense and came
out from the enclosure. The last ones to emerge were Ohina
and Omomo, but since Omomo was carrying the obi in her
arms Masahiko’s eyes were fixed on it. The mother and daughter
had nodded about something and then, after they separated,
Ohina watched her daughter as she walked away.
When the funeral procession began, Masahiko took a position
that was neither too close nor too far away, such that he
could watch Ohina and Omomo. Omomo walked with her
head cast down, following her mother. Off and on Masahiko
caught bits of the conversation as it floated in and out of his
hearing. Oshizu’s voice had possessed dignity when she said,
“Don’t ask needless questions.” He had heard the temple
woman remark in an overly ingenuous voice that sounded out
of place, “Catching poisonous snakes!” He felt he was beginning
to understand the feelings of the villagers.
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Omomo, wearing a black mourning dress, looked thinner
than she had the night before. Before leaving, when he was
given the “dinner for the departed” that included that huge
serving of rice, Ohina had been laughing with the women in
the kitchen in an easygoing mood. From the day before all
sorts of unexpected things had been happening, and especially
after approaching Sayuri’s dead body and thinking of it in connection
with his dream at dawn it seemed his body had been
calling out from within. He wished he could talk about these
things with Ohina and Omomo but the chance hadn’t seemed
to arise. The Omomo who laughed so gaily as she served the
bowls of rice had seemed a completely different person from
the woman who had sung in the moonlight the night before.
In the morning, with his hangover, he had never expected to
hear such a carefree laughing voice. The word “beatitude”
came to mind.
But as for this “different person”—what sort of person was
that woman of the previous night? For the most part she had
seemed like a normal girl brought up in the countryside. He
had the feeling that this woman might be found anywhere.
And yet it also seemed that he hadn’t really established any
clear image of how she looked. From behind, the shape of her
head and shoulders looked so healthy. Where had she gotten
such a divine singing voice?
They came into the midst of a dense field filled with a
strong fragrance. As he was wondering where the smell came
from, Omomo spoke in a soft voice.
“Ah, the rice flowers. The rice plants are in blossom now.
Don’t they smell good? Look how their pollen is blowing all
about.”
He turned his head back and forth to look on both sides of
the road. The surface of the rice fields lay smoothed and caressed
by the wind. A soft sighing sound rose and it looked as
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if a dazzling white powder was wafting up from the densely
growing ears of rice and spreading out across the entire field.
When Masahiko had first heard Omomo mention the flowers
of rice plants he had imagined them as being shaped something
like those of the Chinese milk vetch and having yellow
petals. But now, hearing that they gave off a powder, and actually
seeing this powder blowing all about, the fragrance
struck him with an overpowering presence.
Once again he heard the voices of Ohina and Oshizu.
“What do you think we should do about the obi?”
“You think we should ask the men about it?”
“They’ll just say, ‘Why didn’t you put the obi in the coffin?’”
“That won’t do. Do you think we should ask the people at
the temple?”
In mid-sentence, old Oshizu glanced over in Tsunako’s direction.
“If we ask them, they’ll just tell us to burn it.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“But if we burn it, we’ll have nothing left to remember Oaisama
by.”
“Here’s what I think. I told Omomo we should wash it a bit
and hang it in the sal tree.”
“It’s not the sort of thing you can just wash out easily. It
needs to be sent to a specialist for cleaning . . . It’s the only
thing we have left from Oki no Miya.”
Did Oshizu think so too? After Oai-sama’s death Oki no
Miya had been flooded, along with the village. The waterways
that Oai-sama had cared so much about now lay stopped up at
the bottom of the dam. It had seemed that Sayuri’s function
would come to an end with the flooding of the village after the
dam was completed, but there had been enough requests for
her to help with things such as horses’ digestions and problems
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with the gods of the cooking stoves and such, and so she had
remained quite busy after all.
The house that Oai-sama had left for her, along with the
prayer hall she built that time after they prayed for the rains,
had all been sunk. The villagers had felt sorry for her since she
couldn’t speak and she couldn’t do things like negotiating for
compensation money. So they gathered up discarded materials
and lumber, and people who had free time had helped build a
small makeshift prayer sanctuary. Sayuri had moved in there,
taking only the minimum of implements needed for worship
and the sacred Shinto mirror, but it had become the place
where the women held their monthly ceremonies of worship
and observances for the moon and the river. That light blue
obi had been used as the covering cloth for the sacred mirror
and it had provided the only decoration in the little building
that served as a shrine.
She had put on that obi before she died—but what was it
she’d been thinking of? Ohina’s eyebrows were furrowed. In
washing the body for the burial, first they had needed to untie
the obi. Having soaked up the water, the shuchin silk had become
rather difficult to get undone. In fact, this was not the
first time Ohina had touched that obi.
While Oai-sama was still alive there had been a year with a
long severe drought. Ohina and Omomo, who had no other relatives
they could rely on, had thought of Oai-sama as both a
parent and an elder sister. And in earning their living by gathering
medicinal plants they had also relied on her knowledge
of medicine in countless ways. When Sayuri finally came to
take on the responsibilities of a shrine maiden and was about
to perform the rain prayer rites, Oai-sama had come to visit
them. She carried with her a large pair of tailor’s scissors and
was deep in thought. In front of her she held a large piece of
material.
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Realizing that Oai-sama had come for some matter quite different
from the usual, Ohina had given her a rather hushed
greeting and then looked at her face and at her hands that held
the scissors and then gazed at the beautiful material she
spread out.
“I’m thinking of cutting this.”
At the time, Sayuri still had long hair. Ohina had watched as
Sayuri tilted her neck and looked up to her mother as if to ask
her something. What a beautiful girl—just like a princess—
Ohina had thought.
“This ceremony for the rains is going to be very difficult. It’s
been such a long drought it doesn’t look like it’s going to be
easy to get the rain to fall. I’m thinking of taking this piece of
brocade that’s been covering the mirror and making it into
hakama pants for a formal kimono. Or I’ll make an obi for her
and let her dance, dressed in a white kimono, with this as the
obi.”
“Yes, it’s such beautiful material. No one has an obi of such
material.”
“It’s true. No one has anything like it. Actually it belonged to
this child’s mother.”
“What? The woman who died beneath the cherry tree?”
“That’s right. It was hers.”
“Well, it’s certainly a treasure.”
“Yes, it’s this girl’s treasure. The woman held on to it all
along her way and it wasn’t stolen.”
“I can see it wasn’t stolen, but how did the woman make her
way to the place beneath the cherry tree?”
“I wish I knew. Just after she gave birth she died. She was
wearing the obi over a comforter around her belly. She must
have been a well-loved child. It seems she must have come
from quite a high class family—this really is quite some fabric.
But there was no time to ask her about it.”
“I wonder where she was from.”
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“Well, I couldn’t hear her very clearly, but I heard her say
something about the Mimigawa River. That much I heard
clearly. The rest I could hardly make out.”
“The Mimigawa—that’s off in Hyuga, isn’t it?”
“Could there be other places called Mimigawa? The Mimigawa
River in Hyuga—I’m thinking that someday I’ll save up
the money and take Sayuri with me and search along the
Mimigawa. It’s a strange sounding name, the Mimigawa—the
‘Ear River.’ I have a feeling that if we take this material along
with us we’ll find out something. What do you think Sayuri?”
Nodding, Sayuri had looked at the two women attentively as
if wondering what was going on. They were nodding. As it
turned out, the material was never made into hakama but it
became the obi.
The day of the ceremony for the rains had been like a coming-of-age
rite for her. It wouldn’t do if Sayuri made a mistake,
so when Ohina was asked to help she had rushed over to assist
Oai-sama. While they were tying on the obi for a trial Ohina
had stared in wonder. In the simple new white robe with the
slightly narrow obi tied around it and hanging down in back,
Sayuri cut a figure of the utmost dignity and elegance.
“My goodness, she’s so beautiful. It’s such a pity she can’t
speak.”
The words had just slipped out without thinking as Ohina
glanced up but she couldn’t forget what Oai-sama said in reply.
“By the grace of her not being able to speak, until now she
has lived in purity without being harmed, but I worry about
what might happen to her when I’m no longer here.”
n
That day not only the elder men and the younger ones still
in their prime, but also the leaders of the group of women had
climbed Mt. Ontake together. Since Sayuri was going to carry
out the prayer ceremony it had been necessary to have some
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other women assist her. At the well by the old mansion they
filled containers made of fresh bamboo with water for the ceremony
and carried them on their backs along with rice balls.
The strong young ones took turns in carrying the heavier loads.
Although the springs had almost dried up in many areas
during the long drought, at Masahito’s place cool water still
continued to gush out. In all seasons throughout the year the
women took newly made Shinto paper strips to bless the
rivers. But on this special morning they offered holy sake to
the gods and then drank it in reverence before setting off.
Sayuri went to the spring wearing new white cotton skirtlike
mompe trousers. Ohina knew that for several days Oaisama
had been working late into the night in order to sew the
outfit. Ohina had been asked to help Sayuri purify her body
with that water and to help her dress for the dance when they
arrived at the source of the Isara River.
“I wish I could climb up there with you too, but my knees
are in no shape for it, so I’m asking you. Her hair should be
bound tightly with white paper from behind so it stands up
high, and her white robe should hang out at the hem and her
obi should be tied in a Yoshihisa knot.
“This time it’s going to be different from the way she usually
dances in hakama. She’ll be calling to the gods of Mt. Ontake,
so she shouldn’t be thinking of herself as a person. I’ve told
Sayuri she should dance like a divine being. She should change
her white tabi socks too and prepare herself in the most dignified
manner. Even if there are thickets of grass and brush, she
shouldn’t lose her balance. I’ve prepared some mats to make
an area for the gods. They’re rolled up and I’ve asked the men
to carry them.”
As Ohina watched the ears of rice waving back and forth, all
her thoughts were carried back to that time and to the intense
looks and words of Oai-sama.
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It had been in the first dim light of dawn. At the sight of
Sayuri’s white robe, people had exclaimed,
“My goodness—this is like a scene from an old drama!”
“She looks so wonderful.”
“All right, so let’s get ourselves into the spirit too.”
And at the sight of Sayuri their spirits had risen. When they
reached the third valley they could see the sun breaking out
across the parched rice fields. They all sighed as they spoke.
“It doesn’t look good. All the fields are in the same state.”
“But it’s strange. Compared to the land below, up in the
mountains there’s more moisture. The colors of the grass and
trees are different. They’re thicker and greener.”
“Maybe you’re right. When you get up higher and look
around, the world below looks pale.”
“I’d thought the mountains would be dried out too, but the
air’s got some moisture.”
“Yeah, but look over there—over by the erosion dam above
Kazura Valley. The valley’s all withered and drying up.”
“Hmm, it looks like the trees have all faded and dried out.”
“It’s a bad sign if the Kazura Valley’s gone dry.”
“Yeah, and this is the first time the water from Kazura has
stopped flowing into our fields.”
“The erosion dam, that reminds me—the road the forestry
department put in runs up there.”
“From below you can’t see it, but when you get up higher
you can. Looks like things are in bad shape.”
“Let’s go take a look. It’s only a couple hundred yards off—
really pretty close.”
And so some of them had decided to go and they headed up
the slope of Kazura Valley.
“In the mountains there’s still a little water. The grass and
trees smell different.”
And then, just as someone had said, when they got onto the
narrow forestry road the vegetation grew thicker and was cov-
151
ered with dew that moistened their bodies, and all around
there was actually the fragrance of a summer morning in the
mountains.
Someone mentioned in a pained voice, “I wish this dew
would turn to rain.”
Walking along between the trees, pushing their way through
a thicket of ferns and then going up a rocky slope, they could
see the valley below them.
“Look—the sacred tree, it’s dying.”
For a while no one had spoken.
Even now Ohina could not forget what she’d seen that time.
Actually, she had known already that the great katsura, the
Japanese Judas tree, had died. It would have been better if
everyone had noticed it then. Afterwards, little by little, unfortunate
events started occurring. Or rather, perhaps everyone
had already been dimly aware of it.
“It doesn’t look good,” was what they had muttered at the
time.
With no water in the valley, the dried moss clung fast to the
stones around the rocky river bed. It had seemed that if the
moss could just get a little water it would turn green and swell
up before their eyes. The men went down, cutting back the bamboo
bushes as they went. They could be seen poking up among
the rocks along the riverbed. Those at the top looked down intently.
After a while one of the men waved his hand, signaling
that there was no water. Everyone stared at each other.
At the time people entered the mountain to develop it,
Kazura Valley had been a sacred water source. The valley had
also been a place where wild wasabi horseradish grew, and in
the gathering season the local people would take only the
leaves and stems, breaking them off with their hands and taking
great care to leave the roots unharmed. Had the watershed
gone dry?
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“Kazura Valley’s dying,” someone had said.
The morning mountain breeze rustled as they crossed the
valley which no longer carried the sound of water. They listened
for a while to the sound of the breeze. The dew from the
leaves lightly moistened the necks and cheeks of many.
“If only it would rain,” one had said.
“If the rains would fall the valley would return to its old
self.”
As they spoke, they looked up at the sky and then gazed
over the valley.
“If it would rain the water would come back.”
The feeling for the rain ceremony grew more intense. Still
craning their necks, they had returned to the road.
Kazura Valley was above the place where the Amazoko Dam
was later built. Ohina went there only rarely. The katsura tree
that had been spoken of as the tree of the gods had withered
away so much that it had become scarcely recognizable. Just
the stump and roots barely remained. The valley never revived,
and only the older people knew that wasabi had once
grown there.
In climbing they had spoken of their resolve not to go back
down until they got it to rain, but when they discovered more
water coming out from the river source than they had expected
they felt their energy revive.
“All right then, let’s pour out some of the water we brought.
Sayuri, would you start, please?”
The bamboo water containers were handed to Sayuri. The
people of Amazoko believed that the god of the waterfall who
lived in the headwaters was coming. Sayuri leaned toward the
source with an opened fresh bamboo container.
The men had hung a curtain about a thicket of shrubs and the
women helped Sayuri change her clothes. Ohina assisted in wiping
her body and dressing her in simple white wear. Standing on
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the mats that had been spread out they tied Sayuri’s obi. Her
waist was still slender. They wound it about her twice and as
they pulled it tight from behind Sayuri bent backwards slightly,
staggered, and turned her head to signal it was too tight. The silk
fabric was neither stiff nor pliant but pleasant to touch. It
brought back thoughts of Sayuri’s mother who had worn it
around her waist when she was carrying the baby in her womb.
What kind of woman had she been? She had brought a child
into the world and then died beneath the cherry tree.
“Sayuri, you’re going to put yourself into the dance completely,
for the sake of both of your mothers.”
As she said this Ohina had stroked Sayuri’s back. Then she
sang a sacred song to help her dancing. This had also been the
fervent request of Oai-sama. Ohina had often seen Sayuri’s
dancing, but this time her dance had the quality of a butterfly
as it begins to spread its wings in the shadow of a tree, making
the air about it soften and breathe with life. Ohina thought
such dancing could not be surpassed. When Sayuri looked up
to the sky and started to ring the little bell it felt as if the exquisite
sound emerged from the whole of creation, whirling
about and pressing close. Those who watched were completely
caught up in it. They had the feeling of a cool freshness rising
up and passing along. Some, without knowing why, looked up
to the sky with tears in their eyes, feeling they could barely
hold their bodies still.
On the top of the mountain at the height of summer, every
time Sayuri turned softly in her white gown with the material
of her obi hanging below slightly, the obi caught the colors of
the sun and reflected them on the people. Her expression took
on a serene look, as if she had become spirit. Ohina imagined
that Oai-sama must be fasting and praying and looking up at
the mountain.
It had probably been about three o’clock. The second invocation
of prayers finished without any signs. And then, when
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OKI NO MIYA
the third reading came to an end and everyone’s exhausted
eyes had grown dizzy, up in the sky around the summer sun
that shone on the mountains, a black cloud appeared. Sayuri’s
appearance became that of a Miko shrine maiden and she almost
collapsed. The women rushed to her, gave her some water
to drink and wiped the sweat from her mouth and neck.
Lightning flashed all around and suddenly it grew dark.
The people on the mountain gathered around Sayuri and
she began the dance. It felt as if Ohina’s singing voice had become
one with the spirits of all of them and circled about
amidst the mountain peaks.
In the midst of the downpour they helped her change her
clothing so they could go back down the mountain. They remembered
how, all around the exhausted Sayuri, there were
lovely little pink nadeshiko flowers standing in the pelting rain.
Her soaking wet obi had been hard to untie, but with several
people working on it, finally it was undone.
Last night when they were washing the body it had
brought back so clearly the scene from that former time.
Sayuri had moved her body so flexibly in the rain. But now,
after being submerged in the water and becoming a corpse,
although her body had been nicely shaped for a woman of
around forty, she’d become all puffed up, expressionless, and
pitiful looking.
The year she summoned the rains, the harvest was so meager
that they just barely survived, but in the following year the
rice plants were completely covered with flowers. Sayuri could
sometimes be seen along the edges of the rice fields bending
over to pick ears of rice and decorate her hair, moving with a
smile. Although she didn’t work in the fields, there was no
doubt about the significance of what she had accomplished by
performing the ceremony on the mountaintop.
Nor was it just the rice that had flourished. The plums and
apricots and wild peaches were uncommonly laden with fruit,
155
as if draped in chains, such that it astonished everyone. As if
to make up for the previous year, not only the plums and apricots,
but the camellias as well had stretched themselves to
their limits in bearing fruit and flowers. It was often said that
this was thanks to Sayuri, and the people had taken a new faith
in her as a Miko shrine maiden.
Ohina raised her head and looked ahead at the coffin. The
trees in the grove surrounding the cremation place quavered
and the clouds moved about mysteriously.
“Don’t you think we should get going? It looks like we’re in
for some rain.”
With one hand raised, Kappei, the bearded one, called out
in a hearty voice and directed the procession. The hems of the
women’s kimonos fluttered about and it looked like it was going
to pour.
Omomo mused, “It seems Sayuri was a spirit of the waters
. . . Yes, a spirit of the waters.”
Sayuri’s mother had come from the Mimigawa River area
and given birth to her beneath the weeping cherry tree. Oaisama,
who’d taken her in, had been the guardian spirit of the
waterways. Perhaps it was just as Omomo had said.
Kappei came by and fixed his eye on Oshizu.
“Say there Oshizu, how about if I carry you on my back?”
“What’s this nonsense? You think I’m so old I need you to
carry me? Have you forgotten I used to change your diapers
until you were five or six?”
“Nah, I just meant I wanted to do a little something for you.”
He glanced at Masahiko amiably. Dressed in the formal
hakama and a summer robe, Kappei was drenched in sweat
and he wiped himself with a towel.
“Oh, so here he is, our young gentleman from the old Silk
Estate.”
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Kappei was apparently in fine spirits. From the side, Oshizu
called out, “Well, I wouldn’t mind getting a ride on the back of
the young gentleman from the old Silk Estate.”
All around, people broke out into laughter.
“You’ve got me there Oshizu. I see you still have your fancy
for younger men.”
“Well, I’m still eighteen at heart.”
Chuckling to themselves, the women hurried along the path
through the fields, covering their heads with one sleeve of
their kimonos and glancing up at the sky.
“It’s starting to rain. Let’s hurry. Masahiko, won’t you take
Oshizu’s hand and help her?”
The procession hurried along. Someone called out,
“This would make Sayuri happy. Let it rain. Let it snow. Let
the waters fall!”
As it grew darker, the green of the fields deepened, as if they
were illuminated by lamplight. Masahiko felt that the single
file of the procession was somehow wrapped in a kind of pure
light.
Just as the group gathered under the eaves of the crematory,
a clap of thunder sounded and the rain began to pour. Normally,
just the family of the departed would have remained,
but as Sayuri didn’t even have any distant family members and
as the rain didn’t let up, the whole group stayed until the
burning was finished.
And so in that place, amidst what seemed as if it might have
been just loose talk and jesting, Masahiko was inducted into
the Amazoko Citizens’ Council. The one who brought up the
subject was the same bearded man, Kappei Yamashina. Having
been told only the night before he’d been named a founding
member—amidst all the revelries going on at the time of the
wake—Masahiko thought it might have happened just as a sort
of joke.
157
Oshizu asked in a droll voice feigning ignorance, “Say there
Kappei, tell us, what are you going to do at those citizens’ committee
meetings of yours?”
“What are we going to do? Well that’s what we’re going to
decide now.”
“Come on, don’t tell us you haven’t even decided anything
yet.”
“Well, actually there’s one thing I have decided.”
“Kappei, it sounds like you’ve been bragging too much and
trying to build up your stock again.”
Kappei looked a bit annoyed. The elders took pleasure in listening
to what was going on and observed the proceedings as
they relaxed and occupied themselves smoking their pipes.
“Actually, what I’m thinking of is rebuilding Moonshadow
Bridge.”
Suddenly the elders’ hands, which had been busily engaged
in refilling the pipes, came to a stop.
“Moonshadow Bridge? But that’s . . . it’s at the bottom of the
dam.”
“Well, for now it’s at the bottom, but . . .”
“You’re not planning on rebuilding it at the bottom of the
lake are you?”
“Well, we used to talk about rebuilding it, way back when.”
Oshizu looked toward the group, her face expressing the
thought—there he goes, carrying on with his crazy talk again.
“But that was years ago—before the dam was built.”
“Right, that was before the dam.”
“It was back when you were still just a little kid.”
Kappei looked down with a sheepish grin, as if he’d just
been told something incredibly pleasing.
Masahiko had never seen a man with such a charming smile.
“Yeah, I sure was a wild monkey of a kid.”
Realizing there was no path forward, it deftly turned its upper body back around in the direction from which it had come. Masahiko could recall feeling himself become almost like the measuring worm, tensing and then relaxing. The inchworm had stood there on the tip of the branch with its neck held up, deep in thought. The May breezes rustled through the green leaves and reddening cherry fruit. It had seemed to the young Masahiko that the inchworm was listening to the sounds of the universe and thinking about the meaning of the fact that there are things in the world that cannot be measured. At that time I think I felt great respect for that insect, entrusting itself to the waves of the May sunlight. When I entered high school I wrote my first piece of music. It was a short piece for cello called Satsuki—“May.” I put this image into the notes. It was in a forest. Through the leaves the stirring of a gentle wind was blowing a narrow pathway in and out of sight, again and again. A determined, philosophically minded little insect was out for a walk (this part was associated with Grandfather Masahito). The insect had dedicated itself to the task of going about the world and taking measurements with the length of its own body so as to determine in a rough sort of way what kind of place the world was. That there should prove to be any great difference among the kinds of trees in the forest, or among their ages, or among the colors of their trunks and leaves, and that each would give off its own smell, was something it had not imagined, but measurement was its responsibility and so it did not shirk the task. The time its thoughts were most deeply affected was when the insect realized that its road came to an end. It was there, at the time when all things come to an end, that the grace of CHAPTER 2 9 2 OKI NO MIYA heaven lay. That time, with the wind and sunlight playing about gently on the back of its neck, was when, in an instant, the eternity of existence came to dwell in its tiny body. The forest spread out wide as the insect gazed out onto it and then returned back into its midst.
It would be easy to misinterpret his piece as a rather contrived, theoretical sort of thing but actually he’d intended it to be whimsical, where the truth lay hidden in the play of the wind and leaves. What now recalled to his mind that still-unperformed first piece for cello was his finding, right here in front of him, an inchworm lying on the branch of a fallen tree. Compared with the ones he was familiar with in Tokyo this one was greener. Suddenly, thinking of how the insects up in the mountains must be even more different, he returned to reality. In front of him lay the body of the drowned girl. Trying as much as possible not to look at the dead person, he held some fern leaves in his hand and swatted away the flies that were settling on the body. “You too, you’ve had your own misfortunes.” One of the men engaged in making the stretcher spoke in a consoling manner. Masahiko was somewhat at a loss as to how he might reply but his attention was caught by the color of the dead girl’s obi. Perhaps the sunken village that Ohina and Omomo had spoken of calling out to had already started to take form. As they continued their work, the men talked about the girl who had died. Without particularly trying to listen, Masahiko overheard various things about her. The name of the dead woman, it seems, was Sayuri. She had served at the shrine of Oki no Miya. Back when the droughts had come, the people in the village had gathered around the place where the Isara River joins the main branch of the Aka River and, with their thoughts directed toward the distant Oki no Miya Shrine, they had prayed for rain. Originally, it seemed, 9 3 there had been a great shrine there facing the distant ocean, but at some time it had been washed away in a flood. On the spot where it had once stood was a small stone marker inscribed with illegible small characters. Before Oai-sama died she had brought up her foster child Sayuri to become a miko shrine maiden and had set up a temporary shrine there, but with the building of the dam it too had been sent to the bottom of the waters. And so now, with the death of Sayuri, the traces of Oki no Miya Shrine had completely disappeared. Oai-sama’s hands had first bathed many of the villagers at the time of their birth. But before she gave up her work as a midwife, Oai-sama had said as she delivered the child of a dying woman who had fallen beneath the weeping cherry tree, “For ages I’ve been taking care of other peoples’ babies, but I too would like to have a child of my own.” And so it had happened that Oai-sama came to bring up the child of the woman who had died beneath the weeping cherry tree. That had confirmed the villagers’ thoughts of Oai-sama being a different, special sort of person. But when they learned that the baby girl was born unable to speak they had said among themselves, “Somehow that child must be blessed in the thoughts of the gods.” When Sayuri turned seven, Oaisama had dressed her in a white figured satin kimono with a scarlet hakama outer skirt and presented her with a flowered fan—the sign of a miko. It was the fan she had once received from the head priest of Ontake Shrine. They had walked up and down the slopes of the village in the valley, presenting their greetings to every household. “Thanks to you all, from today Sayuri will become a miko. She will serve Oki no Miya Shrine and will have the responsibility of keeping the oceans and the mountains joined through the courses of the water. We ask your kind favor.” CHAPTER 2 9 4 OKI NO MIYA “My goodness, have you ever seen anyone so beautiful? That clothing suits you so well. It’s so lovely. What a pity you can’t speak.” This was how the people of the village had congratulated her when they saw Sayuri bow innocently to them. “She may not be able to recite the Shinto prayers, but she can perform the dances. Whenever you have the need, please ask her to dance.” And so Sayuri had soon taken up her responsibilities. Whenever the villagers sent her an invitation—whether for a gathering of girls at the festival for the twenty-third night of the moon, or for the river festival, or for any of the festivals for the mountain gods at the little shrines on even the smallest of hills—Sayuri would come and dance with a bell attached to a long tassel. Although there was a male priest, since he was old and it was troublesome for him to go out, she didn’t have to worry about interfering with his affairs. When Oai-sama thought of the future of her adopted child who was unable to speak, it wasn’t so much that she was afraid she would starve, but she worried about how Sayuri would make her way in the world after she was gone. With this in mind, Oai-sama had tried hard to make Sayuri a part of the life of the village as soon as possible. In this village although the rebuilding of houses was rare, the rebuilding of cow barns was a common occurrence. At such times Sayuri would be called on for the groundbreaking ceremonies. It was said that when Sayuri danced with the bell in her hand the cows showed tenderness in their eyes and voices. The cows and horses had all been fond of this girl. Sayuri was born to a woman who died by the wayside and whose identity was unknown. As long as she was together with Oai-sama the village would help take care of her. But Oai-sama must have been especially worried about how, after her death, 9 5 Sayuri would get along. Oai-sama had once said with a very serious face, “Sayuri is no ordinary child. I believe she’s a princess of Oki no Miya.” Since she couldn’t speak it was unlikely that Sayuri would be taken as a bride. Yet even when Oai-sama thought of Sayuri in comparison to herself—a woman who had gone through life without marrying—she worried about the fact that Sayuri was so beautiful and about the way that, for all she couldn’t speak, she might become too affectionate and attached to people. And so perhaps it was in order to protect Sayuri from being taken advantage of that Oai-sama had decided to regard her as one who possessed the qualities of a god. After she stopped working as a midwife she accompanied Sayuri to all her working engagements. On the streets they looked like an ordinary mother and daughter, but when they entered into a ceremony Oai-sama would change completely and act as one who was carrying out the duties of attending a goddess. And in laying out the individual ceremonial dining tables she would give Sayuri the seat of honor. Naturally, the villagers had followed her lead. The oldest-looking man stepped back from the stretcher, now apparently complete. He rubbed his hands, smelling of the green branches. And then, in a low voice, he spoke. “All things change, they say—but to turn out like this . . . Back in the old days, the magnolia flowers were in bloom. Under the flowers by the big house, Sayuri—she must have been about nine or ten then—what a beautiful girl she was. She would dance among the cows, ringing her bell as she moved. It was such a peaceful sight. The cows must have understood too; their voices became different.” Seeing the back of the leg of the dead girl, Masahiko began to feel dizzy. Green water plants clung to a swollen, wrinkled CHAPTER 2 9 6 OKI NO MIYA body that showed no traces of having once belonged to a beautiful young woman. One of the elders picked some bunches of gentians and, without speaking, placed them around the body, its hair still wet. “Whereabouts was that magnolia tree?” When Masahiko asked this, the men, with plaintive expressions, stood up together and pointed toward a place at the bottom of the lake. He was also told that the house where the magnolia flowers bloomed had been the main building of the old Silk Estate. Masahiko slightly regretted having asked. For even if they told him, he wondered if he could understand. Even if he tried to find out how the sunken village had looked in the old days, how could he, who had never even looked into the eye of a cow, possibly understand? In the summer of the fourth year after Sayuri became a miko, a drought had come—one such as had never been experienced before. Oai-sama had thought, now the time has come for Sayuri to perform the ceremony. Oai-sama had vowed that if they should get through the drought safely she would put up a building that anyone who saw would recognize as the shrine of Oki no Miya. She would do this both for Sayuri and for the village. The time had come to have everyone realize that this girl was serving the gods. When she appeared in front of them for the ceremony, if she were to perform as she had until now— even with her graceful movements, her way of sounding the bell, and her dancing—she would still be unable to call forth the rains. Above all, Oai-sama had wondered how to teach this daughter who could not hear to realize that she herself was the one who stood between the gods and the people. The purification rite and the fasting had to be performed together at the Isara River. From the time she retired from midwifery 9 7 she had become able to concentrate on these things. This was the way this determined old woman had decided to spend the remainder of her life. She hadn’t made any promise, yet these were the final respects she paid to the woman who had collapsed under that cherry tree. She couldn’t help feeling pity about it. She wondered whose child Sayuri really was. And for what reason had she been born beneath that cherry tree? The fields of upland rice had gradually stopped producing seeds and remained with barren ears. Countless cracks spread across the land. Frogs lay belly-up and dried out. Eventually the villagers had climbed up to Ontake Peak and gathered together by the side of the memorial stone for Oki no Miya and begged for water. After a prayer dance that expressed everyone’s urgent hopes, the people had taken bamboo containers and filled them with water by dipping them in the bottom of the shallow Isara River. This was for carrying up to the top of Ontake Peak, the point closest to heaven, and pouring onto the source of the watershed in order to call out to the dragon god of the waterfalls. Looking out and seeing the empty-eared rice plants and the dried up waterways did not ease the people’s worries. With rice so scarce, the villagers had to gather all sorts of wild grains, buckwheat, maize, beans, and chestnuts. For these people the waterways that wound through the villages were not simply channels of runoff water; they were the waterways of the gods of the mountains and seas that carried the basis of all life. And so the old villagers had listened carefully for any signs of the little gods in the mountains and they were well acquainted with their comings and goings. And it was also in such a way that they had looked upon the slightest efforts of Sayuri. Night and day the gods looked down on the network of waterways, wells, and rice paddies, checking to see that the water CHAPTER 2 9 8 OKI NO MIYA was flowing properly and making sure that none got clogged with litter and became shut off. An indication might come from something like the appearance of a snake at the roots of a reed bamboo, or a rain frog in the top branches of a tabu tree. The villagers all turned out to take care of things like conducting the memorial services for the dead insects of the fields, and helping with the mogura uchi work when they beat away the moles; and they had to pay attention to the eyes of the gods, making sure they didn’t overlook anything. It was in such a way that there came to be instilled in the villagers a sensitivity to these capillaries of the earth, and a caring to ensure that the system always flowed properly. Should these lifelines of countless waterways that ran all the way from Oki no Miya to the source of the Isara River on Ontake Peak dry up, the life of the village would be cut off. “It was in a place where there was deep fog.” Prompted by some thought that seemed to bear no relevance to what was going on, another of the men who’d been attending the dead body began to talk. “The fog had really settled in thick. It made for good tea. Somehow it made the smell of tea from anywhere else no good. “Yeah, the taste of the tea sure was different. But how did I get started on tea? When was it? The path from Ontake Notch was all fogged in. I thought I was lost so I sat down on a rock to wait for it to clear. “Then from out of the midst of the fog, shadows of a lot of people, ten to twenty of them it must have been, passed by without a sound. As I sat there, someone went right by me. Without thinking, I stood up and walked alongside. I suppose I was worried I might be lost. But in any case I found myself walking along with forty, maybe fifty of them who’d appeared 9 9 out of the fog. I wondered whether they might be the mountain folk. They were short in height. After a while, when we got to the river, the shadows disappeared as if they’d sunk into the water. And then the fog lifted and it cleared. When I looked around, it was a familiar landscape but I realized I’d walked quite a way. I wondered what they must have thought of me.” “Well, as for me, you know, I’ve seen four or five foxes jump out in the fog. I could tell they were foxes by the shadows of their tails. And when the rain lifted you could hear the rush of water sounding through the valley.” “You never know what you’ll meet back there in the mountains.” “Right. One time that old lady Okume went looking for catnip and didn’t get back for three days.” “Yeah, she went off into the mountains to gather things—but there was no telling where. Maybe into the Kazura Valley, where it’s all covered with vines. People warned her she might have been eaten up by a big snake. The old women in her family would have cried and been all broken up. There’ve been stories from way back about the big snakes in that Kazura Valley, with all its vines.” “We went in with sickles and axes, making a big fuss in searching for her.” “Right—and that was the time we saw the curtain of butterflies.” “Yeah, I remember it. At first I thought it might be a covering of katsura leaves stuck to each other, but that too would have been strange. It turned out to be thousands of butterfly wings. It was so beautiful looking through the sheet of wings floating like that and moving with a slight fluttering motion. I’d hardly ever seen that kind of butterfly before. They were azure-blue butterflies, covering a little hill and floating almost motionlessly. Looking at them from a little way off, it seemed like the CHAPTER 2 100 OKI NO MIYA curtain of a theater had dropped across the space between the hills. Just little butterflies, but there were thousands of them. When I looked at them one by one they trembled a bit but didn’t fly away. And then as I watched they floated off into the mountains and disappeared, as if carried off in a fog. It was really enchanting. No one knows the names of those butterflies. “Old Okume was just sitting there resting by the roots beneath that curtain of butterflies.” “Right—and finding her there, it doubled our surprise. It was a bewitching kind of scene. Made us think it might be some kind of huge snake lying there under the curtain that had just disappeared. We all wondered—is that really Okumesan? It left us speechless.” “Finding her alone up there, it must have been pretty frightening.” “Sure it was frightening. But then, as if nothing had happened, old Okume started to talk, ‘Hey, what are you all doing up here?’ and we felt the tension break.” “I’ve been working flat out since yesterday. It’s been nothing but work and I’m beat. After lunch I fell into a deep sleep. I slept soundly for the first time in ages, and then in a dream I saw everyone up there on top of Ontake Peak. The dream told the truth. So good of you all to come.” “After all we’d been through we were exhausted and it almost made us laugh to hear her say, ‘Hey—I’m starving, doesn’t anyone have something to eat?’ It sort of brought us back to our senses.” “What was she working for?” “Wild mountain grapes and mushrooms. Loads and loads of them. So many she couldn’t carry them by herself.” It seemed to Masahiko that, except for the dead body, the mood was like that at any ordinary break time among mountain workers. He found all of these stories deeply moving. 101 n The fragrance of the kudzu flowers they had used in building the grass hut the day before had grown stronger. In order to carry the dead body of Sayuri down the mountain the men had cut fresh trees and tied them together with kudzu vines in the same fashion. The bunches of red-violet kudzu flowers that yesterday had still been buds had now begun to open all at once in the shape of inverted wisteria blossoms. Omomo had told Masahiko that these were the kudzu’s flowers. As he looked closer he realized that there were flowers all over the area around the dam. Each time the wide leaves and flower stems were cut they released a fragrance. Masahiko thought; if it weren’t for the smell of Sayuri’s body lying in the grass I’d be completely wrapped in the fragrance of the mountains. What was this good smell? As he looked between his feet at the fresh autumn soil, taking in its rich aroma of fungi, he became absorbed in thought. He’d never really looked carefully at soil before. Images came to mind of things like scooping up garden soil and putting it into a test tube, adding water, shaking it and examining it for bacteria. Or of squishy mud oozing out of the cracks in the pavement at a construction site. Where, he wondered, had his grandfather bought that yellowcolored soil for his potted plants? Those twisted, bent over pine and nanten plants had been watered and grown up and taken on their dwarfed shapes. But after the old man died they’d mostly withered and died. No one in the family had paid much attention to his grandfather’s spirit. It seemed to Masahiko that the soil in the city had become enfeebled. The village of Amazoko had been flooded by the dam and a girl named Sayuri now lay dead in front of him. And yet from hearing the talk of the men it seemed as though in the area around here the earth was still venting a mist that CHAPTER 2 102 OKI NO MIYA issued from the depths far below. It appeared that even now the inhabitants of Amazoko were coming and going amidst things that appeared and disappeared in the mountain mists. Masahiko was captivated by the talk of shadows that flitted about in the mountain mists. It was a living story that existed beyond the realm of what’s called intelligence. He thought back on the kanpachi cloud of smog above Tokyo. What was that about, he wondered. The name had been coined by city people, in reference to the clouds of exhaust that hovered above the Kanpachi Highway. Masahiko wanted to shoo away every last fly when any tried to land on Sayuri. He held a tree branch ready. The men had gathered and picked up the scattered kudzu flowers and laid them alongside Sayuri’s body, beside a pillow of bellflowers. “There’s a bit of a smell—you think it’ll be all right?” he asked. One of the old men who were looking on answered, “It’ll be OK. We don’t have any incense, so the kudzu flowers will have to do.” While the men were taking a break, one who had gone down to get the police and a doctor from the clinic returned with some new people from the village. To his surprise, Ohina was among them. “Thanks for helping out.” She nodded her regards to Masahiko as if he were one of the regulars from the village. And then, with an expression of intense grief, Ohina knelt down beside the pillow by the dead body. “Sayuri, so this is what you’ve come to.” As she said this Ohina reached out to touch the shoulder, but the policeman quickly held her back. “You’re not allowed to touch it. The body’s involved in an investigation, you know.” 103 The discussions about how to move the body continued. “At least we need to inform the people from Amazoko who are still living near here. We all owe her so much.” “As for those who are far away, well, I suppose it can’t be helped.” “What kind of a fate is this—coming here and dying?” “Her mother who died beneath the cherry tree, where do you suppose she was from?” “I’ve heard she was from the Mimigawa River. Sayuri from Mimigawa—her mother said that just before she died by the roadway. I’m sure I heard that. Isn’t that right Ohina?” It was well known among the people of Amazoko that Ohina had been especially close to Sayuri and her foster mother. “I’ve heard of the Mimigawa too. But why do you suppose she crossed over the mountains to come to Amazoko, rather than going down the river by way of Hyuga?” Ohina fell silent after asking this. “So we’ve lost one more from Amazoko.” “She couldn’t speak, but what do you suppose she saw in this world?” The stretcher carriers had been decided upon and now they took turns in carrying the body down. As they began to walk, one of them said in lowered voice, “That was quite some fire last night.” The person who heard this replied, as if he couldn’t help talking about it, “It burned completely to the ground. Jimpei was burned badly. The prefecture police came and are investigating it.” “Looks like arson, don’t you think?” “Sh- - - .” The man who said “arson” glanced back to make sure the local policeman wasn’t lurking somewhere in the shadows of the thicket and then replied, “I’ve heard that this dead one here could have done it.” CHAPTER 2 104 OKI NO MIYA “What the hell are you saying that for?” The man in front glanced back reprovingly. The group fell silent. They took rests where the footing along the path was bad and at last they made their way to the temple at the base of the mountain. Somehow, word had been passed along and a surprisingly large number of people— young and old, men and women—had gathered for a wake. “I’d thought it was going to be a pretty lonely wake, but with all these folks it should bring some peace to both the dead one and her parents.” After reciting a sutra for the dead, the stooped-over elderly priest joined his palms together. The villagers’ thoughts were drawn back to the times before thoughts had even occurred to them of things happening like the village being flooded for a dam. They remembered the woman who died beneath the cherry tree. At that time too this elderly priest had recited a sutra at the request of Oai-sama, who had taken care of the dead. No doubt the villagers’ words “her parents” had been addressed to both the parent who had given birth to her and the one who had raised her. Masahiko felt awkward at finding himself in such a place. He wondered if Ohina and the men had explained about him, since the villagers were looking at him with particular affection. He wondered if his grandfather too had ever been in such a situation in the past. As he glanced at the fence around the o-mido hall where the statue of the Buddha was placed he was surprised at what he found. Among the rows of black-painted wooden markers he found one with the name of his grandfather written on it. The names were arranged in order of the amounts of donations, stating how much money had been given over the generations. As his grandfather had been the largest donor, his name was written in bold strokes of gold. Suddenly aware that his own presence at the wake held a special significance, Masahiko felt nervous and self-conscious. 105 It seemed that those markers somehow linked him to his unknown ancestors and to his fate in connection with things of the past. But also, he couldn’t help seeing them as small markers pointing the way to the village that had disappeared. Somewhere in Masahiko’s consciousness—still uneasy about the atmosphere at this wake in the mountain village—a wooden marker separated from the temple wall and began to float about as if it were a piece of the remainders of the houses floating on the water about the dam. “Whew! Sayuri sure was heavy.” People were taken by surprise and fell silent. Suddenly Masahiko recalled placing her on the stretcher. The thick coldness of her upper arms; he would never forget that, all his life. He had helped cover the newly made stretcher with reeds. He had helped lay flowers on the body. But then he had just stood there, expecting that it would be the villagers who would lay the body on the stretcher. He’d heard a voice call out, “Could you lift that arm for me?” Even after the doctor forced out the water from her stomach it had seemed that Sayuri’s body was still swollen with water. And although the men caught glimpses of the autopsy, they had tried to occupy themselves by smoking or doing small chores like bundling up the stray branches. Before long, however, they ended up sitting down and staring at the surface of the lake. The hushed voices of the policeman and the doctor were faintly audible. From time to time the surface of the lake shone with lights. It had seemed as if the men’s thoughts were being sucked up and carried off into the depths of the water. The village at the bottom of the lake held connections for each one of them. What sort of world, and what sort of compressed time lay sunken beneath that stagnating green water? Something that CHAPTER 2 106 OKI NO MIYA looked like a string moved through the water. It turned out to be a small snake. They all had seen it, but it disappeared without anyone mentioning it. Had the snake been crossing over to the other side? Where could that valley of kazura vines be now; the one with the big snakes they’d been talking about a while ago? It must lie at the bottom of the dam. A man with a dark beard had stood up as if to urge the others on. “Well, we’d better be getting back before it gets dark.” “Right, before it gets dark,” someone else had repeated, and then the bearded man bowed in front of the pillow. “Sayuri, everyone’s here now, so let’s get you down to the temple . . .” The man had bowed his head and folded his hands in prayer for a moment. Then calling out once more, he had taken the body from its position on its side and lifted it up by placing one hand behind the shoulders and the other on the back of the neck. Taking this as a signal, the other men lifted the body and placed it onto the stretcher of woven branches and grasses. Ohina had cried out, her voice all choked up, “Cover it up. Cover it with kudzu flowers.” Then the policeman had said, “The doctor’s fixed things up a bit so the body won’t smell, at least until you get it down there, so everyone just try to hold out a little while longer.” The mountain path had been narrow, adding to the difficulties of carrying the body along. At points along the way where the path widened the stretcher-bearers took turns in relieving each other. Masahiko had been the youngest among them. “Lucky we met you here. This should be a good funeral.” “We don’t have any young folks with us, so you really helped out. It worked out well.” He hadn’t minded at all being talked to this way by the men, but this was the first time in his life he’d done such heavy labor. 107 The day before, in helping build the grass hut, he’d also done something previously unimaginable. Today’s work had been a continuation. Starting with his meeting Ohina, and continuing with these people, it had all seemed to happen in a rush of fate. But now, after going without any lunch, he felt almost dizzy. Arriving at the temple he was thanked by women he’d never met before. “My goodness. Coming all the way from Tokyo—and the grandson of the family of the old estate, and helping out with carrying the body.” Being greeted like this by the old women had been a bit hard to take but now Omomo was among the women setting out the small individual dining tables and he noticed her looking his way from time to time. Since she was busy she couldn’t come over, yet Masahiko felt relieved. He was surprised to find himself wanting to tell this girl he’d just met the day before about how he’d worked during the past day. Shochu liquor was passed around and gradually things got under way in the living quarters of the temple and the mood grew more lively. Women came in carrying sake glasses and asked, soliciting agreement, “Isn’t this a fine wake—so festive and all?” Masahiko had never imagined feeling festive at a time when a dead person was present. Wouldn’t his grandfather also have wished to meet his death in a place such as this? Grandfather Masahito’s funeral had been just a formal ceremony; with a set schedule, according to orders spoken by funeral directors’ gloomy voices, and hurried along by the crowd behind him. Would they ever have given such a warm send-off to a drowned person who was involved in a police investigation? Even though he’d heard that she had no relatives other than the parent who had raised her, the people of Amazoko were talking of their deep ties to her. CHAPTER 2 108 OKI NO MIYA He dimly recalled what Omomo had said to her mother the night before facing the dark surface of the lake; If we can’t get our feelings through to Amazoko, why don’t we call it up? Now, as time had passed those words came back to Masahiko’s ears with deeper meaning. Could it be that these people here were the people they had called out to? The policeman’s face had grown quite ruddy, but recalling his duty he began questioning the man who had brought the drinking cups. “So tell me now—who was it that saw Sayuri last?” After getting the policeman to take a cup, the man being questioned replied, “Well this is really something now, isn’t it? I see you can’t forget your job even now.” “So the last person to see Sayuri was . . ?” “All right, all right, I heard you already—so you want to know who was the last person Sayuri was seen by.” “Well, who was it?” “Plenty saw her—people who went to watch the fire. Who was it that saw her the most? Well, it must have been Tamayo.” “Who’s Tamayo?” “Tamayo—she lives near Jimpei.” “Ah, you mean that kid who doesn’t like going to school.” “Right. Tamayo. The one who hates school. But even if she doesn’t like school, none of the adults can beat her at gathering catnip.” “So what was this Tamayo saying?” “All last night she was watching Sayuri. From start to finish.” “Is that so?” “Tamayo sleepwalks—but you must know about that already. It was a moonlit night. She was walking along the Otachidote Embankment. And then across from her, like a doll in the joruri puppet theater, Sayuri approached. Tamayo said 109 she looked like the teradehime princess. Sayuri’s face was all white, like a teradehime in those performances that come to town from time to time—you know them don’t you?—Well OK, even if you don’t, it’s no matter. Anyhow, it seems she was walking along like some joruri doll. Tamayo may not like school but she loves joruri so she remembered a lot from it and she copied it. So she bowed, and in the moonlit night she must have gotten caught up in the spirit of it and walked along, imitating the samisen music with her voice. “Then she arrived at Jimpei’s stable. Sayuri loved horses and cows, and they were fond of her too. For a while she patted and stroked the horse and rubbed her head against it. The horse sighed. It wasn’t fully grown yet. When she was younger Sayuri danced at the groundbreaking ceremony for the stable. From then on the horses grew attached to her. “I don’t know what she could have been thinking, but she led the horse out of the stable, and then along the way she tied it to a willow tree. Tamayo must’ve thought it strange and followed along behind. Whatever Sayuri was thinking of, she left the horse there and turned back. With the horse there all alone, Tamayo wondered what to do. She looked around toward the horse, and then toward Sayuri, and then approached the horse and spoke to it. “While Tamayo was doing this she noticed the fire starting up beyond the reed thicket on the embankment. She ran. The fire was in Jimpei’s direction. She paced back and forth, wondering what to do with the horse. While this was going on Sayuri came back, still walking along slowly, just as before. Even in the daytime she looked like a woman at the peak of her beauty in her forties. But all made up in red and white she looked just like a teradehime princess. On her head she was wearing something like a crown made of ornamental hairpins. CHAPTER 2 110 OKI NO MIYA “Sparks and flames shot up. Tamayo stood watching the fire and Sayuri drew near the horse and then started to dance, holding her bell and her fan in her hands. Then the horse nodded its head and started off along with her in the direction of Otachidote. Tamayo—even if she was a sleepwalker—she knew that the path led only into the lake. She said that even in daytime it was scary there, but it was especially bad at night. She’d heard the stories about the cut-down weeping cherry tree at the bottom of the dam and she said the place frightened her. “For us too, it’s no good going there at night. “I don’t know if Sayuri knew about all that—about how the mother who gave birth to her died under that weeping cherry tree. But in any case, when it was cut down the broken tree and all the remains were like blood. One of the men who helped cut it down died in an accident soon afterwards. “But even if she didn’t know about those things, that dam had all kinds of associations with her mother. Why d’you suppose she took the horse from that house on the night of the fire and went to the lake? All those folks who ran over to Otachidote to watch the fire—they may not know as much about it as Tamayo, but plenty of ’em saw it. “They say it was like a scene at the theater. The fire bright red, silver obi trailing, rouge on her lips. Someone was riding a horse. You couldn’t see it clearly, but there was something on the horse. “The next day the horse returned. The stable and the house were burned to the ground. Well that’s how Tamayo tells it, anyway. She must be about ten years old now, I’d guess.” n To the people gathered for the wake the events of the fire the night before and those of Sayuri’s drowning seemed like strands of one entwined story. 111 The villagers were used to seeing Sayuri with her face powdered. But going out in the middle of the night of the fire, not even for prayer—and with her face painted pure white and with her bells and leading a horse—what could that have been about? Tamayo had arrived at the scene of the fire before the embers cooled. She claimed, “Sayuri came and took Jimpei’s horse. That was when the fire started.” Because Tamayo told that story to everyone, some people had felt they should question Sayuri about what happened when the fire started and so several of them went looking for her. They checked the prayer hall attached to her house, but Sayuri hadn’t been there. They realized that since she couldn’t speak, even if they found her they probably wouldn’t learn much from questioning her, but still they might discover something. Jimpei, who had been caught in the fire, almost died of the burns. And the horse really had gone off. Perhaps what Tamayo said might have been true. Tamayo had walked about telling her story to the exhausted people who’d been up all night on account of the fire and then had returned to see the burned ruins. Even those who on first hearing had considered it to be just a child’s tale were now beginning to take it more seriously and were getting more concerned. Jimpei’s wife had been completely shaken by it all and was restlessly glancing around in confusion, hardly able to recognize the people in front of her. “The fire balls of the inugami dog spirits, they came and danced about and set the fire,” was what Jimpei’s wife had whispered in the ears of the people who came to see her injured husband. And when they asked what happened to the horse she replied, “They came to take it from Amazoko. Those inugami, they’ve been after our family’s horses for the past three hundred years now. And they picked up Jimpei with their whirling balls of fire and just carried him off—right into the middle of the fire.” CHAPTER 2 112 OKI NO MIYA Telling this story the wife gazed at her listeners with eyes that looked like sunken pits. Many thought to themselves—ah, Jimpei, he’s already beyond help. At the same time they recalled old memories of the inugami spirits. Jimpei had been a leader of the pro-dam faction. “I was the only one who really faced the Construction Ministry and the prefecture officials and talked to them directly,” he’d boasted. And before the compensation money allotments were decided he had gone around in the night calling on the families to whom he imagined the payments were going to be small. “You know, I have a lot of pull with the prefecture officials, so I can get you special treatment. But don’t go letting on about this to the other families.” This was the sort of thing he was said to have talked about on his walks and visits. The old women had spoken in hushed voices with concern about what would happen to the shrines of the inugami spirits and to the resting places of Oki no Miya if they were sunken by the waters of the dam. Since they hadn’t been able to bring up the subject of the shrines at the village meetings, whenever they happened to meet this big shot in the street they spoke to him about it, despite their hesitancy, but he just screwed up his mouth and dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “What’s all this fuss about shrines for inugami spirits? It’s just this sort of superstition that the modernization this dam represents is aimed at doing away with. The people at the National Construction Ministry and the prefecture offices, they won’t put up with listening to such old-fashioned nonsense. There are too many folks around here who just don’t seem to get it. In this day and age those things are just eyesores. Just sink them. Just sink ’em I tell you. If you sink things like that it’ll clean the place up. Look, it’s not even worth calling this a problem. Can’t you see I’m too busy for this sort of thing?” 113 This talk had troubled the old women even more, but they hadn’t had the strength to push the matter. These things, however, must have weighed heavily in the thoughts of Jimpei’s wife. And so it must have come about that the inugami spirits who had been threatening for three hundred years had appeared in the fire, right before her eyes. This topic had been making the rounds among the people at the wake as they got comfortably inebriated. The liveliest group had formed around the old woman Oshizu, nicknamed “the trumpet of the treetops.” She was one of those who, whenever they had time, went up to Otachidote to look at the bottom of the lake. “Seems a long time’s gone by without much trouble, with us just worrying and staring into the water. But now, after all, it’s happened. After thirty years already.” “Yeah, I guess it’s really been thirty years . . . You heard about what happened, didn’t you?” “Well, I heard plenty of things, but the biggest shock was seeing Jimpei’s wife there in tears and all, crawling about on all fours, just howling away like that. I tell you, it really shook me up.” “It must’ve been too much for her to take, what with the house, the stable, and everything else completely burned, and not being able to help her husband, and Sayuri taking away the horse and all.” The horse had gotten back on its own. It made its way back alone from the dam, feeding on grass along the way. It must have been surprised to find the stable in ashes. With no stable to stay in, it had walked about the neighborhood and made its way to Sayuri’s house, poking its nose inside to look around, until someone tied it temporarily to a magnolia tree. “Wasn’t the horse injured?” CHAPTER 2 114 OKI NO MIYA “Everyone checked to see if it was hurt. If the inugami had come and ridden the horse with Jimpei, you can be sure it would’ve been hurt.” “It doesn’t seem like much happened to it.” “Yes, but even if you can’t see anything, that doesn’t mean nothing happened. The horse—with its caretaker gone and its stable gone—I can hardly imagine it got off completely unscathed.” “Now hold it a minute. It was Sayuri who led the horse out, wasn’t it?” “Well, that’s just the point.” Among the men and women involved in the discussion it seemed the one at the center was Oshizu. “Here’s the way I see it,” she exclaimed decisively. “When they flooded the place they didn’t carry out any of the proper rites or follow any of the customs. And I don’t mean just for the shrines of the inugami spirits, but also for Oki no Miya Shrine, and for the wells of all the houses too. They went about it without a thought, as if it was all right to just let the water rush in. And the worms and the birds’ nests—just think how many other things there were that had houses there too. The birds and the butterflies too, all swooping down and dancing about, all crazy-like. How can anyone take that as nothing at all? “When they started letting the water in, just about the time it began flooding Sosuke’s clover fields, incredible numbers of caterpillars and crickets rose up from the ground, bubbling up all over the place. Everyone gasped when they saw it. With them all floating about on the top of the water like that—it choked us up to watch it. Even now I can’t forget the sight. And just think of how—when people way back first built that field— how they took so much care, holding observances for the insects and everything. 115 “On a hill in the cemetery there was a stone pagoda with words written on it, Memorial for the souls of the ten thousand beings. And when it said it was for the souls of ‘beings,’ that didn’t mean just the humans. That stone marker on the hill was dedicated to the souls of all beings—and not just the birds and insects either; it was also for the souls of the things we can’t see with our eyes. Our ancestors put it there out of thanks for all the creatures and beings that helped protect their village. “These past years it’s been eating at my heart. And now the water in the dam has gotten so low, especially with last year’s drought. I think the village I was born in is still living, but it’s melting down into the banks of the old river at the bottom. And now, just when I was thinking something might rise up from the bottom, it looks like the inugami spirits have showed up. The visiting places of Oki no Miya Shrine are all buried under the mud so you can’t even see their remains. If the streams of water down there get blocked, the life of the mountains above will be destroyed as well. There’s still something bad to come—you can count on that. You can imagine how Sayuri must’ve gotten that way, can’t you, Ohina?” Ohina, who had just brought in a tea tray, sat down quietly beside Oshizu. Sayuri—the miko shrine attendant who’d taken over the duties of looking after Oki no Miya, knowing how much her mother Oai-san had done to care for the visiting places of the shrine—was now dead. To Ohina, who had thought of Oai-sama as her spiritual parent, Sayuri had been like a daughter. Ohina not only had dragged her aching legs to make two round trips to the dam since yesterday, but Sayuri’s death affected her so much that she was quite unsteady on her feet. Picking up on Oshizu’s words from where she’d left off, Ohina began speaking in a husky low voice. Masahiko strained CHAPTER 2 116 OKI NO MIYA his ears to listen. It was a voice like that of the ground bugs he’d heard late last night after he scattered the ashes of his grandfather’s bones. Compared to Oshizu’s voice, which tended to fly right out into people’s faces, Ohina’s more covered voice drew them in to listen. “There are waterways that run from the mountains to the seas, passing through all places and lands. But if we in this village with the name Amazoko abandon Oki no Miya Shrine, the resting place of the dragon god, it will affect the waterways in all the other places too. When we ask for rain, where will the dragon god stop to rest on his travels from the ocean? From old times this has been the route he’s taken. He stops to rest by Oki no Miya, then he climbs up to Ontake Peak, and then he calls on the clouds. If the water didn’t pass through there it would mean taking away the pathways that connect the sea, the mountains, and the sky. “From way back before the time the dam was finished I’ve been thinking how important the village’s name Amazoko is. Amazoko means the ‘bottom, or base of heaven.’ This place was the base of heaven. And what does the word ‘base’ mean? Doesn’t it mean the foundation of this world of ours, with all its untold and unfinished works? Why, even an old hag like myself, I’m grateful to be here. Amazoko—the base of heaven— this is the place where the foundations of the world have been entrusted. It’s a fine name. “If the waterways become clogged up at the resting places where the gods stop on their travels back and forth between the mountains and the seas then it will amount to cutting off their ladder to heaven, won’t it?” Suddenly Ohina’s voice became choked with tears. “Last year during the drought I went with Sayuri and we climbed down to take a look around the bottom of the lake where the land resurfaced. Looking for Oki no Miya, I also 117 wanted to show her about the weeping cherry tree that was cut down there.” Ohina sobbed for a moment and all the other people around her began to feel their own tears welling up. Everyone knew the story of how Sayuri’s mother had died beneath that cherry tree. “We searched all over for the tree, but it was all covered with mud. The mud had covered it over about six feet or so. A surveyor went there and that’s what he told us. There was no way we could have found it. It must still be there somewhere on the bottom of the water, all covered with mud. “If that drought had hung on a little while longer there’s no telling what might have appeared. You know what sort of person Sayuri was, so when she couldn’t find the remains of either Oki no Miya or the cherry tree she seemed terribly dejected. And so after that in the evenings she took to making up her face in white, like she’d done at prayer times, carrying her bell and walking around the banks of the dam. “Last night, who knows what she was trying to call out for, or where she planned to go with that horse she was so fond of. Myself, I was up there with Omomo and we were with the grandson of the old estate to scatter Masahito’s ashes. It seemed there was something strange floating about on the far bank. At that time, I wonder, was Sayuri already dead, or was she still alive? I couldn’t hear any sounds of a horse.” It was Tamayo the sleepwalker and several other people who’d been out walking along the embankment who had seen Sayuri, lit up by the flames of the fire. They remembered how she looked leading the horse—how she seemed so different from others. People had said that her mother, who died beneath the cherry tree that now lay at the bottom of the dam, was born in the neighboring town of Oku Hyuga, along the Mimigawa River. A few of those who were listening to Ohina’s CHAPTER 2 118 OKI NO MIYA story wondered if Sayuri might not have been directly related to the inugami spirits. But no one had spoken of it openly. When Sayuri went to the village meetings she had always left her face natural, without any make up. Whether she understood the discussions that went on there or not, she never seemed to mind carrying out the job of serving tea, as if it were her own appointed role. And even if she had passed the age of forty, the graceful sight of her shoulders and the nape of her neck caught everyone’s attention. When the men amused each other and told jokes the women kept an eye on what they were up to. The women often met in the house with the attached prayer hall that Oai-sama had built after the village was flooded and there they listened to lectures about Kannon and held festivals for the moon. Perhaps this had been partly out of concern for Sayuri, whose mother had died and who had been left alone. Oshizu had been watching the young man from Tokyo who was related to the old Silk Estate. Since he hadn’t turned toward her she devised a pretext and carried a small tapered cup and a sake decanter with a thin neck shaped like a crane. With a gentle look she nudged her way in alongside him. “So you’ve come back here for O-bon, have you? And you even did a memorial ceremony out by the lake. That’s very kind of you. I imagine you must have been quite surprised.” Never having even spoken to this old woman who had just edged her way in to sit by him, Masahiko wasn’t sure how to deal with the situation. “Well, yes, I guess so.” Blinking his eyes as if startled, he broke into an embarrassed laugh. He realized he’d gotten a bit drunk. With people continually saying things such as “you must have been so surprised,” and “it must have been some kind of fate,” it seemed that no matter what they said now he wouldn’t be able to take it in. 119 “Well, it look’s like this guy’s drunk his fill already.” Oshizu, showing disappointment, urged the shochu on the others and helped herself to it as well. The stewed vegetables known as otoki that were served at the wake tasted particularly good. In Tokyo there wasn’t anything like this. Having been initiated into drinking shochu the night before, he had accepted the drinks poured for him by the bearded man seated next to him. Omomo carried in a huge plate heaped with the stewed vegetables and bowed politely. She appeared to be working particularly hard. “You must be pretty hungry.” “Ah, thanks for yesterday.” He didn’t know where to begin his reply, as there were so many things that had happened to him. While Omomo moved about as she took care of the guests, it seemed she was keeping her attention on Masahiko. But when she sat down right in front of him, he found that the intimacy of the night before somehow fled and he felt himself just sitting there stiffly, as if they were meeting for the first time. He thought; I’ve been wanting to say something to her when she comes, and yet now my body is shaking. Probably the apparent change in her appearance from the day before was due to her being dressed in a simple white dress, instead of the red T-shirt she’d worn then. Since they were taking part in a wake it was only natural to dress more formally, yet it seemed a little surprising to find this rather wild-spirited woman looking so neat and proper. Omomo was gazing rather blankly at the large plate of food she had brought in. But then, as if suddenly snapping back into attention, she reached with her chopsticks and dished out some big triangular pieces of fried and boiled tofu. “All right, here you are. Could you just pass your plate over this way for me please.” CHAPTER 2 120 OKI NO MIYA Though a bit formal, still her voice retained that soft quality he had heard yesterday. Now that’s the voice I wanted to hear. For the first time Masahiko felt relieved. Just at that moment a man’s voice called out beside him. “Hey there Omomo—looks like you’re serving the best of the cooking to our young gentleman!” Omomo immediately changed her tone of voice and replied. “This is food for the vigil tonight. So Goro, how about some tofu for you too. Here you go.” “Well, I suppose if you’re twisting my arm, I must. OK then, all right.” “Say Omomo, it’s been ages. How about a little something for me too?” “All right. All right. Here’s some konyaku for you.” “Well, now how about that? Looks like she still remembers. She gave me my favorite.” It must have been on account of her talk with these men that Masahiko’s impression of Omomo had changed from that of the day before. Her quick-witted way of dealing with these old men aroused a new interest in him. But just when it seemed he might get a chance to talk with her, now with this sort of conversation going on he couldn’t easily get started. Perhaps this sort of atmosphere was what the priest had been talking about when he spoke of wakes as being festive occasions. n Raising his glass from time to time the older man on the left nodded his head, following along with Ohina’s story. This was the one called Chiyomatsu, who had been giving the directions about what to do with Sayuri’s body back in the daytime by the bush-covered banks of the dam. 121 At that time he had called out to Masahiko. “Say, could you by any chance be related to the family of the old Silk Estate? You look so similar. Do you mind my asking?” In this place too the old man seemed a bit reserved, yet when he sat down next to him without saying a word for some reason Masahiko felt relieved. While the conversation was loosening up it seemed that a group of quiet elders had been gathering around this slightly built old man. Perhaps it was a group of the most senior of the men. Masahiko hadn’t noticed it, but he’d been given the seat of honor as he was the guest who had come from the farthest distance. Sliding on her knees, Ohina made her way over and bowed deeply to the elders. Old Chiyomatsu spoke to Ohina in a deeply consoling tone of voice. “Thank you for saying that. Sayuri’s death has been hard on us all. Amazoko is a village that has a special responsibility. I share the same feelings toward it as you.” Ohina glanced intently at the old man and, her eyes suddenly welling up in tears, broke out into a smile. What a gentle expression, Masahiko thought. “Thank you so much Chiyomatsu. I felt so sad, my words just spilled out from my heart.” “Well I think all of us feel pretty much that way too. You spoke for us all.” The row of elders nodded their heads together in agreement. “I’ve been talking about the things we’ve been taught for a long time.” Together the elders nodded and then a man in his fifties at the end of the line began to speak. “Ohina, you’re our bridge between this world and that world. Even after we die we depend on your help. But who’s going to go first—that’s something we can’t know.” “That’s the truth. We can never know who’s going first.” From another group a woman’s voice could be heard; “Even tonight or tomorrow morning we might find another messenCHAPTER 2 122 OKI NO MIYA ger of the dead.” It seemed to Masahiko that people were speaking of Jimpei as if he were already dead. Chiyomatsu added, “You know, all day long today, I don’t know why but for some reason it seems I keep recalling that time we went up Mt. Ontake.” “Ah, that time—it’s the same for me too.” The quiet group of elders seemed to be warming up to talk. “Oai-sama and Sayuri really showed their strength that time, didn’t they.” “That time they did the ceremonies and prayed for rain, that was quite a dry spell we went through.” Ohina’s eyes were narrowing into a half-open state, as if she had suddenly recalled something. “Yes, that time. Oai-sama poured her whole life into it. She fasted and transferred her soul completely to Sayuri; I know what they did. And Sayuri, even if she couldn’t speak, she understood completely what was going on and how Oai-sama poured her entire being into it. The two of them, together they performed the misogi purification rites at Isara River. But now that Isara River, it’s down there too at the bottom of the dam.” Suddenly Ohina’s words sank into silence. Everyone’s thoughts must have been wandering around the bottom of the dam. They seemed to be hearing the sounds of water. It was a soft murmuring sound that emanated from the smallest of the streams of water all about Amazoko. The silence flowed on. Masahiko recalled a scene from the twilight of the previous night. A verse of song came back to life in his ears. Yaa Hôre yaa Sixteenth night of O-bon Flowers of the moon Scattering, scattering The evening of flowers 123 Through the open sliding door he gazed at the empty garden. A moon was perched between the trees. Whatever kind of trees they were, their black branches were all woven into the sky. Last night was the sixteenth night of O-bon. Ohina had said that the banks of the Isara River, where Oai-sama had performed the misogi rites to pray for water, had been mostly “melted away.” Even for Masahiko, who had never seen what the old village had looked like, this state of affairs seemed wrong. Ohina’s voice crept into his ears. “Oai-sama once talked about how it was a strange drought and how it might have been a sign of something bad to come. That was still long before all the talk of the dam started. She spoke of how, of late, the children she’d given birth to didn’t seem to come back very much. And even when they did, she could no longer see the black pupils in their eyes seated stably. She wondered what had happened. It seemed their souls had been stolen. Their faces seemed to have become different from those of the villagers. It was as if they’d washed off all the dust of the countryside with the water of the city and become sophisticated. She didn’t feel good about it at all. ‘I wonder,’ she had said, ‘do they really think it’s so wonderful to become a city person?’ “And it’s not just in Amazoko. Even in the villages way off in the back reaches of the mountains, the people who go off to the cities don’t come back. And then the fields and mountains go untended and wild and nonhumans come in. Sometimes new people like those Kishu charcoal makers come in and stir things up for a while, but they don’t stay.” “Right. And Oai-sama used to talk about that ‘French Mountain’ over there, and all the noise they kicked up from the engines of their motorcycles running up and down the mountainsides. That was back in the days before we had motorcycles here.” CHAPTER 2 124 OKI NO MIYA “Yeah, right. I heard all about it—back at the end of the Meiji days, it was—and how that French outfit bought up the mountain.” “Right—that’s the mountain where they had the riots. I heard stories about that too. They put in some sort of French lumber mill at the foot of the mountain and it made such a racket, no one could stand it. That stuff was what led to all the landslides and forest fires. And it never got any better after that. The gods of the mountains must not have been able to stand it. Even the local people rarely climbed such a far-off mountain.” “Sure, those mountain gods mustn’t have been able to stand it. Red-roofed cars, blue-roofed cars, all lined up. The windows all shiny. Glass windows. And bringing in all those machines, it was like some sort of witchcraft, magic. And suddenly cutting down all those trees of the gods, one after another. Just cutting and toppling them over like that. And then running those motorcycles around all over the place. The mountain was screaming with the ruckus everywhere. And then the big floods hit.” “It went on all through the mountains—even way off in the areas where the yamabushi monks who passed through the back reaches of the forests did their practices—back where not even an ax had ever been brought in before. That was back even before they put in the railroad.” “And then the sightseers started coming in with their picnic lunches. I heard about it from old Keisuke who’s dead now. At the end of those troubles the landslides came and washed everything away. That foreign project flowered in vain. Keisuke heard all about it from his friends among the charcoal workers.” Ohina spoke up to resume her story. “Oai-sama talked about those things too. She said, ‘The city is a flower that blossoms in vain, and that French Mountain was the start of it all. One time some of the villagers went to 125 see what was going on and it couldn’t be stopped. But when they got back home they realized that right here in Amazoko we have all the five grains, and that our souls are at peace here, and for that reason we should maintain the village without changing it. “We have the mountains for gathering firewood and making charcoal, and buckwheat and millet to harvest, and mushrooms to gather too. As long as we in Amazoko live by relying on ourselves we can maintain the things we’ve enjoyed through the ages. And for this reason, Oki no Miya, the place the waterways meet, is essential—what do you think Ohina? Those people who go off to the city and eat only white rice— do you think they remember the tastes of all the grains of Amazoko? That white rice is no good for their bodies. When they run off and become city folks they lose the ability to hear the voices of the gods. “‘Amazoko doesn’t even have many rice fields, so we’ve gotten by on millet and other grains and grasses. And actually that’s better. Our babies are strong and healthy. I’ve been a midwife and delivered babies here so I know these things. And if that girl was born beneath the weeping cherry, then she’s a child of Amazoko. I’ve done my best to bring up Sayuri,’—that was what Oai-sama told me.” Ohina’s voice choked up. “I can’t help feeling I’ve failed Oai-sama. Sayuri-san—tying on that obi . . . that obi was her only connection to her hometown on the Mimigawa River. And now, she’s dead. I . . .” Hanging her head in dejection, Ohina reached out with her hand. Coiling the ends of her hair that fell in limp strings on her thin shoulders, she let out a deep sigh. Seeing Ohina looking that way, the elders fell into silence. Hearing Ohina say the words, “tying on that obi,” right in front of him, Masahiko was taken aback. He felt something rifCHAPTER 2 126 OKI NO MIYA fling about in his mind, like some sort of air turbulence. He felt that in the present circumstances he couldn’t just come out and say that this was the same obi he’d seen in his dream this morning when he saw the back of that girl. The obi that was wrapped about Sayuri’s dead body when she was raised out of the water had been stained with a smoky dark color of water. He hadn’t realized that the material was an authentic piece of the finest shuchin silk, but from seeing its refined, subdued luster he could tell that it was a fabric of great elegance and refinement. But then, what of that dream he’d woken to this morning? It couldn’t have been—and yet . . . It seemed things were getting stranger and stranger. He wanted to ask Ohina what she thought about it, but surrounded by the glances of the elders, and with Ohina looking so dejected now, he didn’t feel he could bring up the story of his dream here. Perhaps feeling concerned about this mood, Oshizu got up again and drew closer, sliding on her knees. “It looks like I’m going to have to look after that boy.” Holding a glass in hand she remarked, “This is a beautiful liquor here. It’s really delicious. They say it’s made from mountain peaches and strawberries. We only serve it to special guests.” He was beginning to feel like trying a bit of this liquor now— the one he’d been turning down. Perhaps if he got a little drunk on it he’d be able to continue that dream. The glass he was poured held the fragrance of the fruit of mountain trees, and as he drank it seeped down deep through his entire body. “All right, that’s the spirit now—drink up! Say, let’s have another round here.” The men were used to Oshizu’s manner of entertaining guests. In an instant the tense atmosphere seemed to lighten up and then someone spoke up to change the topic of conversation. 127 “You remember that time Ohina offered the prayer song to the Buddha in thanks for the rains? We all danced together.” “That’s right. Oai-sama asked for it.” “We asked too. That was no ordinary happening that year.” “That year we lost a lot of people. Three died.” “When it gets too hot or too cold we lose a lot.” “Right. That year just at O-bon, all through the night, starting from the houses of the dead, we went around from house to house doing the nembutsu dance for Amida Buddha to console their souls.” “Old Kirihito-san the song leader—how many years has he been gone now?—he had a great voice and he accompanied Ohina’s songs so well. He used to sing all through the night. And he danced too, with all his soul.” “Right, right. The people in his group said his dancing that time was like he’d gone off into a dream land and was dancing in a place somewhere off beyond this world.” “Today we hardly ever offer prayers for rain and now the water at the bottom of the dam’s gotten all mucked up. That can’t be a good sign, that sort of thing.” Could the people of Amazoko really see the water at the bottom of the dam? Come to think of it, this morning when Masahiko looked at the bottom of the dam it appeared agitated and he had thought this was because of Sayuri’s obi. “You came from Tokyo for Sayuri’s night attendance.” Hearing Oshizu say this, he wondered if her mention of a “night attendance” referred to the wake. The words struck him as coming from a distant age. “It’s a shame none of us attended Masahito’s funeral. What with Tokyo being so huge and all, even Ohina didn’t go.” With her eyes cast downward and her head bowed down showing the back of her neck, Ohina made no reply. Masahiko looked on the silent Ohina with fondness. His family hadn’t CHAPTER 2 128 OKI NO MIYA even sent a funeral announcement to the old village his grandfather had long ago turned his back on. No one here had even been told of it. Looking about, he wondered where Omomo was. Perhaps in the kitchen, washing dishes or something. She must have been looking after Oshizu and the other elders. “We thought no one from your family would ever come back, but now with the village sunk at the bottom it seems you’ve come after all.” So old women get drunk too, he mused. Masahiko stared at Oshizu. Suddenly, right in front of him, she raised one of her elbows above the opening in the sleeve of her kimono with a gesture that looked just like that of a praying mantis. Then she opened her mouth and let out a laugh. “All right—now it looks like he’s put some color back into his face. Looks just like Masahito when he was young—don’t you think, Ohina?” But Ohina wasn’t there. She had gotten up quickly and left. People were now moving in closer and slapping each other on the back. The sake vessel with the crane-shaped neck lay on the tatami. Someone’s foot had caught on it and knocked it over. This sort of scene was waving about in Masahiko’s eyes. Masahiko looked up at the walls and ceiling. It appeared to be a very old temple. Its construction was different from that of the ordinary houses of the villagers. He tried to recall something. Yes—there had been a name marker, with golden characters written on black lacquer—certainly there had. The words read; For the recitation, in perpetuity, of sutras for our ancestors— the sum of 20,000 yen. Mikihiko Aso. Amazoko Village. Mikihiko was the name of his great-great grandfather. Certainly he had never thought he would find the name Mikihiko in a temple such as this. It had been written before the flooding of the village. Sixty years before, or maybe seventy. How 129 much had 20,000 yen meant at that time? It conveyed both an air of ostentatiousness and a sense of emptiness. The name marker had become detached from the wall and appeared to be drifting about. Could it be that this place was already at the bottom of the water? A deep voice called out to him, and then he was clapped on the shoulder. “Well now, our young Tokyo gentleman—you really put in a day’s work, didn’t you. Don’t you feel better now, after some of our special wine?” It was the bearded man, the one who’d spoken the words to the dead body—“Sayuri, everyone’s here now. So let’s get you down to the temple,”—back when they had carried the stretcher from the banks of the dam. “Since you’ve taken the trouble to come here and spend this night with us, you have to register yourself as a member of the Amazoko Citizens’ Council—Masahiko-shan.” The man’s face had turned bright red, and the grave expression he’d shown earlier in the day now looked friendly. It was the first time Masahiko had ever been addressed with the intimate form “Masahiko-shan.” The feeling it gave him was not at all bad. “Is there such a thing as the Amazoko Citizens’ Council?” “I just made it up now. Why, up in Tokyo you have citizens’ councils, don’t you? What I’ve made here isn’t something way off in Tokyo. It’s at the bottom of the water. The Citizens’ Council of Amazoko, at the bottom of the water. Pretty good name, don’t you think? And for you, making it here all the way from Tokyo, I hereby designate you Original Founder Number Two. How’s that?” “Me—a founder?” “Come on, don’t talk like a fool. You’re already drunk on Oshizu’s seven-flavored wine?” The bearded man laughed with his whole body shaking. CHAPTER 2 130 OKI NO MIYA “Come on now, drink up. You have all the qualifications of a founder. Wasn’t it your family who was the first to run off from the town of its birth? The very oldest family. Isn’t it always the ones who’ve left their hometowns—the ones who’ve lost their birthplaces—who start up these associations? So you must have better credentials than anyone else.” “But I . . .” “Come on, talk some sense, won’t you? That slow—yeah that slow way of talking of yours, I kind of like it. Sure, you have all the credentials you need for a Citizen of the Depths.” “Well, I do have a feeling the waters at the base of the dam are swaying around.” n Masahiko woke to a cool breeze that covered his body like a stream of flowing water “Ah, you’re awake?” The reserved-sounding voice came from a woman he didn’t know. “Excuse me, the door was open.” He sat up. The woman bowed and left the room. He shook his head and thought. Where am I? Who was that woman? The room was so bright. Beyond the corridor flowers were swaying. Those are cosmos—even I know cosmos. Beyond the garden was a high hedge. Ah, that’s the same tree as the one at the Philosophy Hall in Nakano. But this isn’t a house in Nakano. He began to recall the events of the previous night. Ah, that’s right—I carried a body from the lake. This is the temple—there’s incense in the air. The sharp shriek of a bird sounded. Masahiko didn’t recognize it as the call of a shrike. A yellow cat jumped up lightly onto the porch. It stared at Masahiko, stretched out, raised its head and then lay down—an amazingly long-bodied cat. Again 131 the cosmos swayed about. It seemed both the cat and he himself had been sleeping there for ages. While sleeping it had seemed that a voice from a sutra had been flowing in and out of his dreams, time and time again. “Why don’t you go with us to the place the bodies are cremated?” A pleasantly familiar voice had filled his ears again. It was the voice of the bearded man. Masahiko was clapped on the back by a big hand. “These days we put fuel oil on them, so they burn a lot faster than in the old days.” He remembered replying that he would go. Would he really go—to the place where they burned bodies? From the previous day sometimes it had seemed as if he had crawled into the center of an enormous tree. He felt as if his blood had been assimilated into the sap of the tree and it was flowing through the tree from the trunk to the tips of its leaves. He could feel its roots searching out the little trickles of water. The smell of the rocks and stones filled his nose. He got up, gathering some of the bedding about him. Suddenly he felt his breathing constrict. He stamped his foot and then shook out the bedding and folded it up. “Pardon me, I’ve woken you so early. Shall I put away your bedding? Oh my . . .” It was the same woman he’d seen before. I can’t remember coming to this room last night. I guess I must have been drunk. I wonder how I got into this room to sleep. The cat raised its head, gave an annoyed blink and then went back to sleep. “Ah, excuse me, your lunch is ready. You can wash your face here.” The woman returned and pointed. “Your biwa is over there.” The instrument had been placed standing up in the tokonoma. CHAPTER 2 132 OKI NO MIYA “Do you play the biwa?” “Well, yes,” he replied vaguely. She seemed older than Omomo. Her skin shone. Now he remembered—this was the young wife at the temple. Back when he helped carry Sayuri’s body and came to the temple, this was the woman who had seen the biwa on his back and held out her hand and then withdrawn it. “Carrying something like that on your back, along with the dead body—that must have been quite difficult.” “Well not really. Along the way, Ohina carried it for me.” Suddenly the woman’s face grew suspicious. He avoided going into the matter further. He was starved to the point it felt he was about to faint. “This persimmon is from Ohina.” On a tray, some salted umeboshi plums, a cup of green tea, and a peeled persimmon had been placed. “Ohina said these are good for hangovers. They’re supposed to help you get over it. They’re the first of the season. Her daughter brought them here.” He tried to rouse himself, but his head was still reeling. “It looks like you overdid it a bit. But with everyone making you drink like that it’s not surprising. Here, have some tea, and some umeboshi too.” She waited for him to finish drinking the tea before asking, “Is Ohina a friend of yours? And Omomo-chan?” He answered that they had known his grandfather. He didn’t mention that he hadn’t known them until two days ago. He recalled the scene of Utazaka Hill, with the sky and the branches of the persimmon. “Ah, that persimmon . . . probably it’s still not quite ripe. It might be a bit sour,” she added, drawing in her breath. “The persimmon may be all right, but for a hangover umeboshi are best.” The warmth of the thick futon had been so pleasant but now, suddenly, he felt pulled back into reality. It seemed the 133 woman was a bit put out by the fact that the persimmon had been brought by Ohina and Omomo. “Please, why don’t you try some?” He took an umeboshi and put it in his mouth. This seemed to put the woman into a better mood and she stood up with a smile. “Your lunch is ready over there.” Perhaps because he’d eaten the salty umeboshi plum first, when he bit into the crisp, not quite ripe persimmon it tasted delicious. Moving into the large room set up with individual ozen tables, he found there was food on one table only. Women were busy cleaning up. He must have slept a long time. “Momo-chan—why don’t you fix something to eat for that fellow from the old Silk Estate,” called out one of the women. From the kitchen Omomo called back, “You must be tired from all your work yesterday,” and then she came out wearing a white apron and knelt on the floor. Unaccustomed to such a greeting from Omomo, as it sounded like that of a country housewife, Masahiko cleared his throat uneasily. Feeling like a young kid who doesn’t know the ways of the world, he realized the women were straining their ears and listening. “Please eat as much as you can.” He was surprised by the bowl that was given to him. It was piled with so much rice he wondered what the women might be up to. Noticing his perplexed look, the women broke out into laughter. “My goodness, I haven’t seen anything like this in ages. It’s a feast for a Buddha of old. I guess it must be a surprise for this young man from Tokyo.” Omomo also broke out into a laugh. “You’re right. It certainly is a feast fit for a Buddha. Not a bad farewell dinner for Sayuri, I’d say.” CHAPTER 2 134 OKI NO MIYA Masahiko raised and lowered the black lacquered bowl as if it were quite heavy and then he slowly picked up his chopsticks. The women approved of his manners. Setting out the various dishes of cooked and pickled foods they remarked, “Oh my, Momo-chan.” Outside in the yard straw mats had been set out and men were busy with various tasks. Some were cutting out shapes of horses and flowers from white paper. Others were stripping the green coating off lengths of bamboo. Still others were sawing planks. And as he watched, a fresh wood coffin was constructed right before his eyes. “There were several generations of Mikihikos, but anyone who saw their funerals will tell you they sent the dead off in coffins they made themselves. At the time of the funeral of the last of the Mikihikos I was still only nineteen, but I sure learned a lot from the old people about how to do a funeral.” The elder Chiyomatsu, seated on the veranda watching how the work was proceeding, spoke to them from time to time. Masahiko had been watching the men’s activities with only mild interest, but when he heard the talk about Mikihiko’s coffin he was pulled back to attention. All the men and women had their own tasks and it appeared they were fully enjoying their work. All sorts of talk went on, but Masahiko couldn’t catch more than a fraction of it. “In the old days, half the men went off to dig the graves, but now that the graveyard’s at the bottom of the lake the work of grave digging has fallen off. Nowadays the bodies are cremated so it’s gotten easier, but the dead must think our compassion has grown weak. “I’m with you there,” another elder broke in. “In those days when we carried the coffin and laid it into the opening in the ground it always seemed there was something special about the weight. It’s hard to explain. Even though it was a dead 135 body it felt like it had the weight of a person. When we laid people’s bodies into the grave I felt they’d fulfilled their roles in this world. I felt I too had played a small part in it. But what with burning the bodies these days, and using oil, and the sound and all—well, it just doesn’t sit right.” Even amidst the conversations, when one of the elders said something the others strained their ears so as not to miss anything. And the mention of the unpleasant sounds of the crematory brought an immediate reaction from old Oshizu-san who came over, still eating and holding a rice scoop. “That burning sound really gets to me too. There’s not even enough time for a farewell. It just isn’t right.” “She’s right,” another woman added quickly, “After dressing it up so nice in robes for sending it along, and then with that sound of burning oil, it just doesn’t give a decent send-off for the dead.” Other than the elders, the only one not involved in the work was Masahiko. Sitting on the verandah, he looked at the palms of his hands. They were an unblemished white. His fingernails were long and slightly soiled. He hid his hands behind his back and for a while there was silence. Could it be that everyone was hearing the sounds of the burning oil at the time of their own deaths? The sounds from the crematory were not right for the dead of Amazoko. When Amazoko people were laid out in robes of white it was only proper that they should pass over Moonshadow Bridge by Otachidote Embankment, and over the Isara River, and then head off into the mountain mists. No doubt this was what the old men and women must have been thinking. To be disposed of in an oil-fired oven, at the flick of a switch—even if the body had already become a soul—it just wasn’t right. “In the old days,” Chiyomatsu began, “when a person died, everyone took special care in preparing the way for the soul’s CHAPTER 2 136 OKI NO MIYA journey over the bridge. They helped send the person along as it crossed over on its way.” Oshizu spoke in a voice almost panting, “We had them wear white leggings on their feet and coverings on their hands, and we had them take dumplings for the deceased, and a coin purse. We checked to make sure nothing had been overlooked: Were all the children there? Had all the lanterns been prepared?—we told the children to be sure to take them all. Had the children eaten the dumplings?—if they didn’t chew the dumplings they’d be taken along with the dead person. One by one the women began to speak out. “That’s right. When a dead person left, sometimes a child might be taken along with it too. That’s why we checked for marks of flour around the children’s mouths, to make sure they’d eaten the dumplings.” Chiyomatsu broke into the discussion again. “All the children stood at the front with the lanterns and the young people’s group held a banner for the departed. That was the kind of procession they made to send off the departed souls.” “That was the procession for the day of the soul’s departure. The children carried lanterns and pounded out rice to make Omaimo-sama’s dumplings and they spread pebbles they’d gathered at the Isara River around the building at the cemetery.” “Yes, and in Amazoko even after a death there was a road for going out and a road to return by.” “And they spread the message of the dead—‘We’re sending off Sayuri. Tonight is her wake. Even the crows, and the cows and horses, and the dogs and cats know it’s the day of her passing. Their voices are different.’” “The crows and dogs went too and returned over Moonshadow Bridge.” 137 “I wonder if the water’s still flowing there now.” “The water where?” “What do you mean ‘where?’—under Moonshadow Bridge, of course.” “Ah, the Isara River. Now everything’s down there at the bottom of the lake.” “It’s strange, but if you look to the bottom the lost world seems to come back to life.” “Certainly there’s a world that did exist.” “There are still signs of it here and there.” “The branches of the ginkgo trees and horse chestnuts are swaying in circles and reaching out with their sinewy hands. They’re signaling and calling us from the depths of the lake.” “Yes. They’re calling us. Back that time when the water dried up I went and looked and it really surprised me, what I saw. The big ginkgo was bending over and raising its skinny arms from its side.” “When you think of it, in the old days in Amazoko we had everything we needed.” “That’s right. From miso to sake to everything we needed for the festivals, we could get them all at the straw sandal shop.” “The only things we couldn’t get there were salt and fish from the ocean.” “And we didn’t have gambling either.” “Once the dam construction started, the gambling came in.” “Yeah, at that little shack. I heard they’d just been let out of jail and they brought the gambling with them. That’s how I heard it got started.” “That guy Santaro. He was the first to start up the gambling.” “Yeah, he’s the one who comes to mind as the guy who started it.” “I wonder where he is now.” CHAPTER 2 138 OKI NO MIYA “Followed the older ones who taught him their tricks—how to screw folks out of their money.” “That’s where most of the compensation money went.” Suddenly the talk fell into silence as the people were caught up in thinking back on the rumors about that swindler who had made off with the fortunes of the old estate. A woman in her fifties made her way into the midst of the group. “It looks like Sayuri may be the last to get a proper funeral like this.” “If Sayuri’s the last one then it looks like the rest of us are headed for that oil incinerator. We won’t even be able to have our little chat with the old king of the underworld.” At this everyone laughed and brightened up. “Hey, let’s knock off thinking like this. Everything that happens is a sort of practice. If you’ve gone through training for hell once, what happens afterwards is easy.” The bearded man spoke with a serious intensity. The younger priest’s wife came in after Omomo and started preparing tea. “Well, it looks like things are starting to liven up. Here, have some tea, won’t you? The priest said that when you’re finished making the lanterns we can head off for the cremation.” “All right, all right. We’ll be finished soon. This bearded guy here knows all the stories about hell. Seems he’s proud of it.” The priest’s wife watched the man as she handed out the teacups. “Yeah, I guess I know about it pretty well by now—I’ve been there and back a few times.” Everyone knew the story of how this fellow had gotten drunk on shochu and walked along the top of the dam construction site and fallen. Even though he’d hit an iron construction rod and gotten skewered all the way through his 139 body from his rear end to his neck, he’d been saved by good fate. They all regarded it as a stroke of special luck. “Myself, I don’t take any particular pride in it. It was just that one time. It was the first time in my life I was in the papers. They didn’t mention anything about the iron rod though. People came from all over to see me after they read about it.” Everyone could imitate that tone of voice of his, and whenever they’d had enough of his telling this story someone would mimic and tease him. “On and on about your getting into the papers—don’t you think we’ve heard enough of it already? You were about to land in the obituary column.” Everyone had been prepared for Kappei to launch into that old story again today, but somehow it didn’t come up. Always at the close of his story he used to tell of how Sayuri had come—“dressed as a shrine maiden, beautiful as a wisteria flower”—and prayed for his recovery. He believed it was owing to her care that he had been called back from the depths of hell and so he always spoke of her as his Kannon, his savior. n About the time the sutra reading for the departure of the procession from the temple came to an end, it began to cloud over. Looking up, people pointed to the sky and wondered. “I guess we should be able to make it back before it starts to rain.” “Compared to carrying her down the mountain, taking her to be cremated should be easier. So let’s get moving.” But as the body turned out to be heavier than expected they added extra carriers to help out. And still others, the children and the women, joined the procession carrying lanterns and incense. Before they started off, Chiyomatsu gave a greeting. CHAPTER 2 140 OKI NO MIYA “Well, it seems that with Sayuri this may be the last funeral like this. Every one of our families is indebted to her. It may be hard on you who carry the coffin, but let’s get started. These days funerals have become such stiff city-style affairs and the body of the departed is whisked away in a hearse so quickly we hardly even have a chance to take a decent last look.” The women all nodded as they stood in place. Since it had been agreed that it wouldn’t do for Masahiko to be dressed in the same clothes he’d arrived in, he was given the elderly priest’s formal kimono and a robe with the family crest. It seemed that the others who wore robes with family crests were the leading men. There were five or six of them. On seeing Masahiko changed from wearing a T-shirt to a formal kimono, the women made quite a stir. One of the elderly women gasped, “Oh my goodness. It looks just like he’s come back.” Ohina was also among them, but she held her breath as she looked on and gently wiped her brow. The procession began to move forward. Along the paths among the fields the grasses and heavy-laden ears of rice were swaying. Slowly the group moved along, following the pace of the women and children. “All the fields are ripe and full.” “Such beautiful fields.” “In the old days Sayuri prayed and danced here for the rains so many times.” With eyes narrowed as he gazed at the colors of the rice, and his voice choked with tears, one of the men said, “If she could see these beautiful fields now she’d be so happy—but she’s gone.” “Her soul may still be nearby, so she may be watching the fields now.” Dressed in mourning clothes and wearing white tabi socks, the women were walking along the grassy path, stepping with graceful movements that differed from the way they walked when 141 they were working. The soft gentle earth felt different from when they worked the fields. With each step, they felt from the soles of their feet that they were walking along a special path. “This is a quite a funeral, Sayuri. Everyone has turned out to send you off.” With her chin partly hidden in the collar of her kimono, Oshizu spoke out softly, “Yes, it really is a wonderful funeral. It looks like the funerals from now on are going to seem pretty lacking in spirit.” “I’m glad I could come.” “Yes, it’s for times like this that we make these mourning clothes.” The women complimented each other on their clothing. A cool breeze rose up, ruffling the hems of their kimonos. With their hems held up the women revealed legs of uncommon elegance. “Ohina, what have you been up to these days?” Called out to from behind, Ohina turned around. It was the younger priest’s wife. “What have I been up to? My usual work. Why?” “Ah, catching snakes. Have you been getting many?” Ohina’s eyes blinked as if she were trying to pull herself back into the conversation. She replied, “Hardly any.” “They say most people can’t catch any at all.” Oshizu rebuked her; “Tsunako-san, this is no time to talk about that, at a funeral. We’ve all had enough already.” “I didn’t mean anything special. I was just asking.” “Well then don’t go asking needless questions. There are times for bringing up things, and times it’s not called for.” The younger priest’s wife waved her fan back and forth and turned aside. A heavy fragrance wafted from her fan. Oshizu, making a slight gesture of fanning herself with her handkerchief, stepped up beside Ohina. CHAPTER 2 142 OKI NO MIYA “Thanks for all your help from yesterday.” “Oh, you’re welcome. It was no trouble.” “That obi—do you know what happened to it?” “Well, I thought we should put it in with the coffin, but on second thought I kept it.” “Seems it might have been better to have put it in with her, doesn’t it? I couldn’t decide either. It would really bother me to have it left behind.” “I thought we could take care of it at any time, so I left it hanging on the sal tree. I thought someone would think of it.” “It’s probably because of that obi that I can’t forget the time she prayed for rain.” “Were you there too, Oshizu?” “Certainly I was there. Why even now I can still see it. But where’s that sal tree—the one the obi was left hanging on?” Oshizu’s tone of voice dropped suddenly. Tsunako had stopped waving her fan but now she started up again, as if nothing had happened. “It was on a tree near Sayuri’s prayer hall.” “Well, I hope so.” The old woman nodded twice. At the temple also there was a sal tree with a trunk that glistened. Oshizu’s words implied that if the obi had been left at the temple, Ohina probably would be reprimanded. The night before, the leading women had washed and prepared Sayuri’s body for the funeral. They cleaned and purified it, dressed it in white robes, and prepared it for its journey. “Ohina-san, please,” one of them had said as the comb was passed and Ohina was brushing out Sayuri’s long hair. Normally when the women met they were talkative, but this time they all had been silent. “She looks so different . . .” 143 “All her color and luster are gone,” Oshizu remarked sorrowfully. With brusque movements the women combed out her hair and poured hot water on it. Sayuri’s hair moved along with the water and became slightly tangled in the mat made of rough bamboo straw. “If you just look at her hair it still looks like she’s alive.” With a sigh someone said, “She was a shrine maiden. No perms or hairdos for her. Such beautiful hair.” After the men had set out the straw mats and erected a circular enclosure in the yard in back of the temple they hadn’t looked at the area where the women were washing and preparing the body. At a quick glance, Masahiko had been able to see smoke from the incense and steam rising upward from the circle, but he couldn’t hear much of the conversation going on within. He heard someone call out, “Salt, salt,” and then the women covered their hands with the smoke of the incense and came out from the enclosure. The last ones to emerge were Ohina and Omomo, but since Omomo was carrying the obi in her arms Masahiko’s eyes were fixed on it. The mother and daughter had nodded about something and then, after they separated, Ohina watched her daughter as she walked away. When the funeral procession began, Masahiko took a position that was neither too close nor too far away, such that he could watch Ohina and Omomo. Omomo walked with her head cast down, following her mother. Off and on Masahiko caught bits of the conversation as it floated in and out of his hearing. Oshizu’s voice had possessed dignity when she said, “Don’t ask needless questions.” He had heard the temple woman remark in an overly ingenuous voice that sounded out of place, “Catching poisonous snakes!” He felt he was beginning to understand the feelings of the villagers. CHAPTER 2 144 OKI NO MIYA Omomo, wearing a black mourning dress, looked thinner than she had the night before. Before leaving, when he was given the “dinner for the departed” that included that huge serving of rice, Ohina had been laughing with the women in the kitchen in an easygoing mood. From the day before all sorts of unexpected things had been happening, and especially after approaching Sayuri’s dead body and thinking of it in connection with his dream at dawn it seemed his body had been calling out from within. He wished he could talk about these things with Ohina and Omomo but the chance hadn’t seemed to arise. The Omomo who laughed so gaily as she served the bowls of rice had seemed a completely different person from the woman who had sung in the moonlight the night before. In the morning, with his hangover, he had never expected to hear such a carefree laughing voice. The word “beatitude” came to mind. But as for this “different person”—what sort of person was that woman of the previous night? For the most part she had seemed like a normal girl brought up in the countryside. He had the feeling that this woman might be found anywhere. And yet it also seemed that he hadn’t really established any clear image of how she looked. From behind, the shape of her head and shoulders looked so healthy. Where had she gotten such a divine singing voice? They came into the midst of a dense field filled with a strong fragrance. As he was wondering where the smell came from, Omomo spoke in a soft voice. “Ah, the rice flowers. The rice plants are in blossom now. Don’t they smell good? Look how their pollen is blowing all about.” He turned his head back and forth to look on both sides of the road. The surface of the rice fields lay smoothed and caressed by the wind. A soft sighing sound rose and it looked as 145 if a dazzling white powder was wafting up from the densely growing ears of rice and spreading out across the entire field. When Masahiko had first heard Omomo mention the flowers of rice plants he had imagined them as being shaped something like those of the Chinese milk vetch and having yellow petals. But now, hearing that they gave off a powder, and actually seeing this powder blowing all about, the fragrance struck him with an overpowering presence. Once again he heard the voices of Ohina and Oshizu. “What do you think we should do about the obi?” “You think we should ask the men about it?” “They’ll just say, ‘Why didn’t you put the obi in the coffin?’” “That won’t do. Do you think we should ask the people at the temple?” In mid-sentence, old Oshizu glanced over in Tsunako’s direction. “If we ask them, they’ll just tell us to burn it.” “I suppose you’re right.” “But if we burn it, we’ll have nothing left to remember Oaisama by.” “Here’s what I think. I told Omomo we should wash it a bit and hang it in the sal tree.” “It’s not the sort of thing you can just wash out easily. It needs to be sent to a specialist for cleaning . . . It’s the only thing we have left from Oki no Miya.” Did Oshizu think so too? After Oai-sama’s death Oki no Miya had been flooded, along with the village. The waterways that Oai-sama had cared so much about now lay stopped up at the bottom of the dam. It had seemed that Sayuri’s function would come to an end with the flooding of the village after the dam was completed, but there had been enough requests for her to help with things such as horses’ digestions and problems CHAPTER 2 146 OKI NO MIYA with the gods of the cooking stoves and such, and so she had remained quite busy after all. The house that Oai-sama had left for her, along with the prayer hall she built that time after they prayed for the rains, had all been sunk. The villagers had felt sorry for her since she couldn’t speak and she couldn’t do things like negotiating for compensation money. So they gathered up discarded materials and lumber, and people who had free time had helped build a small makeshift prayer sanctuary. Sayuri had moved in there, taking only the minimum of implements needed for worship and the sacred Shinto mirror, but it had become the place where the women held their monthly ceremonies of worship and observances for the moon and the river. That light blue obi had been used as the covering cloth for the sacred mirror and it had provided the only decoration in the little building that served as a shrine. She had put on that obi before she died—but what was it she’d been thinking of? Ohina’s eyebrows were furrowed. In washing the body for the burial, first they had needed to untie the obi. Having soaked up the water, the shuchin silk had become rather difficult to get undone. In fact, this was not the first time Ohina had touched that obi. While Oai-sama was still alive there had been a year with a long severe drought. Ohina and Omomo, who had no other relatives they could rely on, had thought of Oai-sama as both a parent and an elder sister. And in earning their living by gathering medicinal plants they had also relied on her knowledge of medicine in countless ways. When Sayuri finally came to take on the responsibilities of a shrine maiden and was about to perform the rain prayer rites, Oai-sama had come to visit them. She carried with her a large pair of tailor’s scissors and was deep in thought. In front of her she held a large piece of material. 147 Realizing that Oai-sama had come for some matter quite different from the usual, Ohina had given her a rather hushed greeting and then looked at her face and at her hands that held the scissors and then gazed at the beautiful material she spread out. “I’m thinking of cutting this.” At the time, Sayuri still had long hair. Ohina had watched as Sayuri tilted her neck and looked up to her mother as if to ask her something. What a beautiful girl—just like a princess— Ohina had thought. “This ceremony for the rains is going to be very difficult. It’s been such a long drought it doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy to get the rain to fall. I’m thinking of taking this piece of brocade that’s been covering the mirror and making it into hakama pants for a formal kimono. Or I’ll make an obi for her and let her dance, dressed in a white kimono, with this as the obi.” “Yes, it’s such beautiful material. No one has an obi of such material.” “It’s true. No one has anything like it. Actually it belonged to this child’s mother.” “What? The woman who died beneath the cherry tree?” “That’s right. It was hers.” “Well, it’s certainly a treasure.” “Yes, it’s this girl’s treasure. The woman held on to it all along her way and it wasn’t stolen.” “I can see it wasn’t stolen, but how did the woman make her way to the place beneath the cherry tree?” “I wish I knew. Just after she gave birth she died. She was wearing the obi over a comforter around her belly. She must have been a well-loved child. It seems she must have come from quite a high class family—this really is quite some fabric. But there was no time to ask her about it.” “I wonder where she was from.” CHAPTER 2 148 OKI NO MIYA “Well, I couldn’t hear her very clearly, but I heard her say something about the Mimigawa River. That much I heard clearly. The rest I could hardly make out.” “The Mimigawa—that’s off in Hyuga, isn’t it?” “Could there be other places called Mimigawa? The Mimigawa River in Hyuga—I’m thinking that someday I’ll save up the money and take Sayuri with me and search along the Mimigawa. It’s a strange sounding name, the Mimigawa—the ‘Ear River.’ I have a feeling that if we take this material along with us we’ll find out something. What do you think Sayuri?” Nodding, Sayuri had looked at the two women attentively as if wondering what was going on. They were nodding. As it turned out, the material was never made into hakama but it became the obi. The day of the ceremony for the rains had been like a coming-of-age rite for her. It wouldn’t do if Sayuri made a mistake, so when Ohina was asked to help she had rushed over to assist Oai-sama. While they were tying on the obi for a trial Ohina had stared in wonder. In the simple new white robe with the slightly narrow obi tied around it and hanging down in back, Sayuri cut a figure of the utmost dignity and elegance. “My goodness, she’s so beautiful. It’s such a pity she can’t speak.” The words had just slipped out without thinking as Ohina glanced up but she couldn’t forget what Oai-sama said in reply. “By the grace of her not being able to speak, until now she has lived in purity without being harmed, but I worry about what might happen to her when I’m no longer here.” n That day not only the elder men and the younger ones still in their prime, but also the leaders of the group of women had climbed Mt. Ontake together. Since Sayuri was going to carry out the prayer ceremony it had been necessary to have some 149 other women assist her. At the well by the old mansion they filled containers made of fresh bamboo with water for the ceremony and carried them on their backs along with rice balls. The strong young ones took turns in carrying the heavier loads. Although the springs had almost dried up in many areas during the long drought, at Masahito’s place cool water still continued to gush out. In all seasons throughout the year the women took newly made Shinto paper strips to bless the rivers. But on this special morning they offered holy sake to the gods and then drank it in reverence before setting off. Sayuri went to the spring wearing new white cotton skirtlike mompe trousers. Ohina knew that for several days Oaisama had been working late into the night in order to sew the outfit. Ohina had been asked to help Sayuri purify her body with that water and to help her dress for the dance when they arrived at the source of the Isara River. “I wish I could climb up there with you too, but my knees are in no shape for it, so I’m asking you. Her hair should be bound tightly with white paper from behind so it stands up high, and her white robe should hang out at the hem and her obi should be tied in a Yoshihisa knot. “This time it’s going to be different from the way she usually dances in hakama. She’ll be calling to the gods of Mt. Ontake, so she shouldn’t be thinking of herself as a person. I’ve told Sayuri she should dance like a divine being. She should change her white tabi socks too and prepare herself in the most dignified manner. Even if there are thickets of grass and brush, she shouldn’t lose her balance. I’ve prepared some mats to make an area for the gods. They’re rolled up and I’ve asked the men to carry them.” As Ohina watched the ears of rice waving back and forth, all her thoughts were carried back to that time and to the intense looks and words of Oai-sama. CHAPTER 2 150 OKI NO MIYA It had been in the first dim light of dawn. At the sight of Sayuri’s white robe, people had exclaimed, “My goodness—this is like a scene from an old drama!” “She looks so wonderful.” “All right, so let’s get ourselves into the spirit too.” And at the sight of Sayuri their spirits had risen. When they reached the third valley they could see the sun breaking out across the parched rice fields. They all sighed as they spoke. “It doesn’t look good. All the fields are in the same state.” “But it’s strange. Compared to the land below, up in the mountains there’s more moisture. The colors of the grass and trees are different. They’re thicker and greener.” “Maybe you’re right. When you get up higher and look around, the world below looks pale.” “I’d thought the mountains would be dried out too, but the air’s got some moisture.” “Yeah, but look over there—over by the erosion dam above Kazura Valley. The valley’s all withered and drying up.” “Hmm, it looks like the trees have all faded and dried out.” “It’s a bad sign if the Kazura Valley’s gone dry.” “Yeah, and this is the first time the water from Kazura has stopped flowing into our fields.” “The erosion dam, that reminds me—the road the forestry department put in runs up there.” “From below you can’t see it, but when you get up higher you can. Looks like things are in bad shape.” “Let’s go take a look. It’s only a couple hundred yards off— really pretty close.” And so some of them had decided to go and they headed up the slope of Kazura Valley. “In the mountains there’s still a little water. The grass and trees smell different.” And then, just as someone had said, when they got onto the narrow forestry road the vegetation grew thicker and was cov- 151 ered with dew that moistened their bodies, and all around there was actually the fragrance of a summer morning in the mountains. Someone mentioned in a pained voice, “I wish this dew would turn to rain.” Walking along between the trees, pushing their way through a thicket of ferns and then going up a rocky slope, they could see the valley below them. “Look—the sacred tree, it’s dying.” For a while no one had spoken. Even now Ohina could not forget what she’d seen that time. Actually, she had known already that the great katsura, the Japanese Judas tree, had died. It would have been better if everyone had noticed it then. Afterwards, little by little, unfortunate events started occurring. Or rather, perhaps everyone had already been dimly aware of it. “It doesn’t look good,” was what they had muttered at the time. With no water in the valley, the dried moss clung fast to the stones around the rocky river bed. It had seemed that if the moss could just get a little water it would turn green and swell up before their eyes. The men went down, cutting back the bamboo bushes as they went. They could be seen poking up among the rocks along the riverbed. Those at the top looked down intently. After a while one of the men waved his hand, signaling that there was no water. Everyone stared at each other. At the time people entered the mountain to develop it, Kazura Valley had been a sacred water source. The valley had also been a place where wild wasabi horseradish grew, and in the gathering season the local people would take only the leaves and stems, breaking them off with their hands and taking great care to leave the roots unharmed. Had the watershed gone dry? CHAPTER 2 152 OKI NO MIYA “Kazura Valley’s dying,” someone had said. The morning mountain breeze rustled as they crossed the valley which no longer carried the sound of water. They listened for a while to the sound of the breeze. The dew from the leaves lightly moistened the necks and cheeks of many. “If only it would rain,” one had said. “If the rains would fall the valley would return to its old self.” As they spoke, they looked up at the sky and then gazed over the valley. “If it would rain the water would come back.” The feeling for the rain ceremony grew more intense. Still craning their necks, they had returned to the road. Kazura Valley was above the place where the Amazoko Dam was later built. Ohina went there only rarely. The katsura tree that had been spoken of as the tree of the gods had withered away so much that it had become scarcely recognizable. Just the stump and roots barely remained. The valley never revived, and only the older people knew that wasabi had once grown there. In climbing they had spoken of their resolve not to go back down until they got it to rain, but when they discovered more water coming out from the river source than they had expected they felt their energy revive. “All right then, let’s pour out some of the water we brought. Sayuri, would you start, please?” The bamboo water containers were handed to Sayuri. The people of Amazoko believed that the god of the waterfall who lived in the headwaters was coming. Sayuri leaned toward the source with an opened fresh bamboo container. The men had hung a curtain about a thicket of shrubs and the women helped Sayuri change her clothes. Ohina assisted in wiping her body and dressing her in simple white wear. Standing on 153 the mats that had been spread out they tied Sayuri’s obi. Her waist was still slender. They wound it about her twice and as they pulled it tight from behind Sayuri bent backwards slightly, staggered, and turned her head to signal it was too tight. The silk fabric was neither stiff nor pliant but pleasant to touch. It brought back thoughts of Sayuri’s mother who had worn it around her waist when she was carrying the baby in her womb. What kind of woman had she been? She had brought a child into the world and then died beneath the cherry tree. “Sayuri, you’re going to put yourself into the dance completely, for the sake of both of your mothers.” As she said this Ohina had stroked Sayuri’s back. Then she sang a sacred song to help her dancing. This had also been the fervent request of Oai-sama. Ohina had often seen Sayuri’s dancing, but this time her dance had the quality of a butterfly as it begins to spread its wings in the shadow of a tree, making the air about it soften and breathe with life. Ohina thought such dancing could not be surpassed. When Sayuri looked up to the sky and started to ring the little bell it felt as if the exquisite sound emerged from the whole of creation, whirling about and pressing close. Those who watched were completely caught up in it. They had the feeling of a cool freshness rising up and passing along. Some, without knowing why, looked up to the sky with tears in their eyes, feeling they could barely hold their bodies still. On the top of the mountain at the height of summer, every time Sayuri turned softly in her white gown with the material of her obi hanging below slightly, the obi caught the colors of the sun and reflected them on the people. Her expression took on a serene look, as if she had become spirit. Ohina imagined that Oai-sama must be fasting and praying and looking up at the mountain. It had probably been about three o’clock. The second invocation of prayers finished without any signs. And then, when CHAPTER 2 154 OKI NO MIYA the third reading came to an end and everyone’s exhausted eyes had grown dizzy, up in the sky around the summer sun that shone on the mountains, a black cloud appeared. Sayuri’s appearance became that of a Miko shrine maiden and she almost collapsed. The women rushed to her, gave her some water to drink and wiped the sweat from her mouth and neck. Lightning flashed all around and suddenly it grew dark. The people on the mountain gathered around Sayuri and she began the dance. It felt as if Ohina’s singing voice had become one with the spirits of all of them and circled about amidst the mountain peaks. In the midst of the downpour they helped her change her clothing so they could go back down the mountain. They remembered how, all around the exhausted Sayuri, there were lovely little pink nadeshiko flowers standing in the pelting rain. Her soaking wet obi had been hard to untie, but with several people working on it, finally it was undone. Last night when they were washing the body it had brought back so clearly the scene from that former time. Sayuri had moved her body so flexibly in the rain. But now, after being submerged in the water and becoming a corpse, although her body had been nicely shaped for a woman of around forty, she’d become all puffed up, expressionless, and pitiful looking. The year she summoned the rains, the harvest was so meager that they just barely survived, but in the following year the rice plants were completely covered with flowers. Sayuri could sometimes be seen along the edges of the rice fields bending over to pick ears of rice and decorate her hair, moving with a smile. Although she didn’t work in the fields, there was no doubt about the significance of what she had accomplished by performing the ceremony on the mountaintop. Nor was it just the rice that had flourished. The plums and apricots and wild peaches were uncommonly laden with fruit, 155 as if draped in chains, such that it astonished everyone. As if to make up for the previous year, not only the plums and apricots, but the camellias as well had stretched themselves to their limits in bearing fruit and flowers. It was often said that this was thanks to Sayuri, and the people had taken a new faith in her as a Miko shrine maiden. Ohina raised her head and looked ahead at the coffin. The trees in the grove surrounding the cremation place quavered and the clouds moved about mysteriously. “Don’t you think we should get going? It looks like we’re in for some rain.” With one hand raised, Kappei, the bearded one, called out in a hearty voice and directed the procession. The hems of the women’s kimonos fluttered about and it looked like it was going to pour. Omomo mused, “It seems Sayuri was a spirit of the waters . . . Yes, a spirit of the waters.” Sayuri’s mother had come from the Mimigawa River area and given birth to her beneath the weeping cherry tree. Oaisama, who’d taken her in, had been the guardian spirit of the waterways. Perhaps it was just as Omomo had said. Kappei came by and fixed his eye on Oshizu. “Say there Oshizu, how about if I carry you on my back?” “What’s this nonsense? You think I’m so old I need you to carry me? Have you forgotten I used to change your diapers until you were five or six?” “Nah, I just meant I wanted to do a little something for you.” He glanced at Masahiko amiably. Dressed in the formal hakama and a summer robe, Kappei was drenched in sweat and he wiped himself with a towel. “Oh, so here he is, our young gentleman from the old Silk Estate.” CHAPTER 2 156 OKI NO MIYA Kappei was apparently in fine spirits. From the side, Oshizu called out, “Well, I wouldn’t mind getting a ride on the back of the young gentleman from the old Silk Estate.” All around, people broke out into laughter. “You’ve got me there Oshizu. I see you still have your fancy for younger men.” “Well, I’m still eighteen at heart.” Chuckling to themselves, the women hurried along the path through the fields, covering their heads with one sleeve of their kimonos and glancing up at the sky. “It’s starting to rain. Let’s hurry. Masahiko, won’t you take Oshizu’s hand and help her?” The procession hurried along. Someone called out, “This would make Sayuri happy. Let it rain. Let it snow. Let the waters fall!” As it grew darker, the green of the fields deepened, as if they were illuminated by lamplight. Masahiko felt that the single file of the procession was somehow wrapped in a kind of pure light. Just as the group gathered under the eaves of the crematory, a clap of thunder sounded and the rain began to pour. Normally, just the family of the departed would have remained, but as Sayuri didn’t even have any distant family members and as the rain didn’t let up, the whole group stayed until the burning was finished. And so in that place, amidst what seemed as if it might have been just loose talk and jesting, Masahiko was inducted into the Amazoko Citizens’ Council. The one who brought up the subject was the same bearded man, Kappei Yamashina. Having been told only the night before he’d been named a founding member—amidst all the revelries going on at the time of the wake—Masahiko thought it might have happened just as a sort of joke. 157 Oshizu asked in a droll voice feigning ignorance, “Say there Kappei, tell us, what are you going to do at those citizens’ committee meetings of yours?” “What are we going to do? Well that’s what we’re going to decide now.” “Come on, don’t tell us you haven’t even decided anything yet.” “Well, actually there’s one thing I have decided.” “Kappei, it sounds like you’ve been bragging too much and trying to build up your stock again.” Kappei looked a bit annoyed. The elders took pleasure in listening to what was going on and observed the proceedings as they relaxed and occupied themselves smoking their pipes. “Actually, what I’m thinking of is rebuilding Moonshadow Bridge.” Suddenly the elders’ hands, which had been busily engaged in refilling the pipes, came to a stop. “Moonshadow Bridge? But that’s . . . it’s at the bottom of the dam.” “Well, for now it’s at the bottom, but . . .” “You’re not planning on rebuilding it at the bottom of the lake are you?” “Well, we used to talk about rebuilding it, way back when.” Oshizu looked toward the group, her face expressing the thought—there he goes, carrying on with his crazy talk again. “But that was years ago—before the dam was built.” “Right, that was before the dam.” “It was back when you were still just a little kid.” Kappei looked down with a sheepish grin, as if he’d just been told something incredibly pleasing. Masahiko had never seen a man with such a charming smile. “Yeah, I sure was a wild monkey of a kid.”
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