MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
With his thick eyebrows bobbing up and down, Kappei had
taken on the look of a somewhat absent-minded bear.
Then suddenly he stopped this motion, leaving his eyebrows
set in a straight line. He blinked hard and opened his mouth,
leaving it gaping wide open. Everyone wondered if he was
about to cry.
For a while no words came from his mouth. Sayuri had been
Kappei’s savior, his Kannon-sama. It brought tears to the eyes
of some of the women to see him look this way, trembling as if
he were about to fall and his mouth just opening and closing.
This was the same man who was known as “Porcupine,” the
one who since the previous day had carried the dead body and
helped with the preparations for the wake and led the procession
with such energy.
“I . . .” With a facial expression so crumpled that, strangely,
it almost looked as if he were about to laugh, Kappei wiped his
face with a hand towel.
“Yeah, I was a wild monkey—and I saw Moonshadow Bridge
fall in.”
Suddenly everyone remembered: that time in the Year of
the Horse when the waters broke through. Kappei’s father had
159
MOONSHADOW
BRIDGE
3
gone to rescue an elementary school boy from the next village
who had tried to cross the bridge. While Kappei’s father was
carrying the child back in his arms the bridge had collapsed
and they both had been washed away. The fire brigade found
his happi work coat some ten kilometers down the river where
it had been caught in an eddy behind a boulder, but the two
bodies were never found. At that time Chiyomatsu, who’d
been working for the fire department, had been piling sand
bags around the foot of the bridge. He looked up and saw that
little monkey of a boy Kappei climbing a big nettle tree along
the riverbank, swaying in the torrential rain. The boy had been
looking down on the river and for some reason he was playing
with something like a lasso.
“Who’s that kid?”
Just as this voice called out, Kappei’s father ran out to the
middle of the bridge that was shaking with the waves of the
river. Probably he hadn’t noticed his own child on the top of
the nettle tree.
He dashed out to save the boy from the neighboring town.
The boy had been staggering along, his umbrella blown away.
Just at the moment he grabbed the boy in his arms, that part
of the bridge broke off, as if it had melted away. It all happened
in the blink of an eye. People still speak of it as the flood
of the Year of the Horse. Kappei could never forget that scene,
even in his sleep. What in the world had possessed him to
climb that tree that day, as if to catch a glimpse of his father?
That old nettle tree had remained standing on the banks by
Moonshadow Bridge until the dam flooded it. After that day of
the muddy floodwaters, even though it had been severely
scooped out around its roots, when the waters cleared the tree
had thrived like a great water plant. The fine hairs of its swaying
roots harbored fish, such as eels and catfish. A great round
tree-shelter, year after year it added healthy new leaves.
CHAPTER 3
160
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
After Kappei’s father’s funeral, the adults had asked him
about it in low voices.
“What ever made you climb that tree at a time like that and
coil that rope? You could’ve been washed away and drowned.”
The boy had cast his eyes downward with a dejected expression
and said nothing. He came to be thought of as a somewhat
eccentric child. At the time of the flood his intention had
been to try to catch a serow as it was crossing the river. From
the stories about the countries of the world he’d been told by
the medicine vendor who came once a year from Toyama, he’d
heard that the antlers of a certain deer from the distant mountains
of China were used to make a medicine. He’d been told
that it was so expensive it would set your eyes on fire if you
heard its price. There was no chance that ordinary folks could
get it, even if they had a fatal illness.
“Well, it’s something that royalty and aristocrats take. But
folks like us—we might get to take a look at it, but it’s not something
we can ever have. At most we might get some bear stomach
medicine.”
He had also heard that cows sometimes got washed away in
times of flood but that wild boars and deer were good at crossing
rivers. His mother had often been laid up in bed because
of the “road of blood,” such that she was unable to get out and
take part in public affairs.
Many times it had been Kappei’s job to tell people, “I’m
sorry, but my mother isn’t feeling well now so she won’t be
able to attend tomorrow’s meeting.”
“Onami-san isn’t feeling well. It must be the ‘road of blood’
again,” was what the women would always say. For Kappei, it
had been hard to bear this talk.
“That time I was trying to catch a serow to get its horns.”
Only one time did he let out the reason he couldn’t say anything
when he was questioned about it by the adults. The time
161
he fell from the dam construction site and Sayuri visited him
and said a prayer for him all the men had thought there was
little chance he’d survive. He was told that he’d been gored
through his rear end by a steel rod and there was little hope
he’d live. When they cut off the steel rod with a blowtorch he
was still in convulsions and everyone said it looked like he was
gone for sure.
Sayuri, along with Oai-sama, had come to see him and had
brought some apricots. The fruit, flecked with dots of crimson,
were more beautiful than any in pictures. It seemed their special
tartness worked an effect on his body. Truly Sayuri was
nothing less than a Kannon-sama.
Kappei had a wife and children, but any number of times
he’d had to shake his head, trying to drive out the futile dream
of how it might be to take care of Sayuri as an older wife—if,
that was, he didn’t already have a wife and children.
When he got better he went to them to express his thanks.
When Oai-sama saw Kappei bowing his head and folding his
hands she waved her hands saying, “I delivered you when you
were born, so I have to see you through your whole life. It was
just a little help. For you to recover from such a bad injury it
must have been your dead father who helped you out the
most. You’d better go pay a visit to his grave, don’t you think?”
Being spoken to in this way, the words had just slipped from
his mouth.
“That time when I climbed the tree—I was looking for a
serow crossing the river . . . When Father was washed away I
couldn’t do anything to help.”
Oai-sama, seemingly surprised, had said “Ah, that time,” and
gazed at Kappei’s head for a while.
“A serow? Why was that?”
“For the horns. I wanted to use them as medicine for my
mother.”
CHAPTER 3
162
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“Ah—deer horns.”
She heaved a big sigh and looked at Sayuri as if she were
gazing into her own heart. Oai-sama had great affection for the
two of them.
“I clearly remember the words I heard when you were born.
Your father came running to meet me, carrying a bamboo dipper.
When I asked him what he was doing with the dipper he
answered with a concerned look, ‘I have to get some hot water
to fill the wash basin. The water hasn’t boiled yet. Hurry—the
baby’s coming.’ He grabbed my hand and pulled me along.
Without even putting on my apron I ran to Moonshadow
Bridge. You had a good head of black hair and a strong body.”
As soon as Kappei heard the words “Moonshadow Bridge,”
the sight of his father being swept away returned and his eyes
started to well up with tears. The village gong had been sounding
and the mountains and the land were being shaken by the
torrential rains. Adults were running about and screaming out
loud. The fields and forests were hidden by a rain that looked
like smoke. The village had taken on a completely different appearance
from usual.
“Don’t you go outside!” his father had yelled sternly as he
pulled on his fire brigade coat and ran out of the house into
the downpour. Kappei had followed after—making sure he
stayed out of sight, hiding behind the pomegranate tree of the
water god.
Around that time, Kappei had made a lasso and amused
himself in the shed by playing imaginary games of catching
boars and badgers. Often, families of boars and badgers would
cross over Moonshadow Bridge. If a lone young boar came
along it was easy to catch, but when the boars were out with
their parents they charged along and it could be dangerous. If
you caught a young badger and all went well you could bring
it up with the dogs and cats. Probably Kappei’s hunting instincts
163
had already been shaped during his earlier days when he’d
played Tarzan swinging across the ravines on the wild wisteria
vines, but these instincts were really called into play that day
when he saw his father go off. Certainly there had been a connection
to the serow’s horn. But what really spurred him on
had been a vaguer instinct.
He had taken pride in being the best at tree climbing. The
adults were working with all their might piling up sandbags.
He too had wanted to do something to help out. Seeing the
muddy waters swirling about, he had gone out full of youthful
enthusiasm to Moonshadow Bridge to take a look. He brought
along his rope. Would a serow come? There was one with
horns he’d seen at sunset standing at the top of the cliff above
Kazura Valley. The waves of the river were striking at the girders
of the bridge.
In his dreams he sometimes saw the scene of his father going
after the child from the next village, as if the picture were
being replayed from a movie in slow motion. He had been
caught up in the excitement of the moment. Stepping firmly
on the branches of the nettle tree he had thought of being
swept away in the raging current of muddy red water. He had
also felt he might be hung upside down, suspended from a
cord from the sky.
When the adults yelled at him so sternly and he turned
briefly toward them he caught sight of his father running. And
then, in an instant, the bridge had given way, carried away by
the swirling red torrent. The rope had fallen from his hands.
Thoughts of the story of that time still tugged at his mind. It
was hard for him to explain his feelings about running out after
his father. Didn’t it seem too unbelievable, even for a child,
to say it was because he was hoping to catch a serow crossing
the river in the midst of a flood? And even more so, to say he
was trying to get the horns to make medicine? Wasn’t it really
CHAPTER 3
164
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
because he’d been so caught up in wanting to be out among
the adults and see what was happening with the flood?
The men of the fire brigade had gathered about the foot of
the tree with angry looks. They motioned him to get down on
their shoulders and five or six of them grabbed his legs. What
had he really intended to do with the lasso that time? Had he
really planned to try to catch a serow?
In times when it looked like there would be flooding, the
normally outgoing man known as “Porcupine” would become
silent. He would still go about his duties in checking on the water,
but his face looked troubled. Often he would find okera
bugs swimming about. Bending over to see, he’d place them in
the palm of his hand and take a good look. In times of floods
these insects would appear along the edges of the rice fields.
Probably when the holes they lived in became flooded they
would swim away to escape. As they swam they moved their
heads about with such vigor. He thought of how he himself at
that time had been like one of those insects.
At the time when the water was first let into the dam, these
same okera bugs had been mixed in along with all the other insects
of the mountains, covering the surface of the water.
Along with the other villagers, he had often gone to stare in
amazement at the town as it was submerged by the water. Oaisama
and Sayuri had been among those who watched.
What had once been mountain forests, terraced gardens,
and pathways along the hillside were gradually turned into the
banks of a lake. Countless insects floated about on those
banks. That day when Kappei bent over to look, he saw the
tops of the trees in the bottom of the water. He saw the trees
of Osubo-san’s woods and the enormous Japanese bread tree
as well as the fateful big nettle tree on the deep banks of the
river. He imagined that his footprints still remained on that
prominent tree. He had scooped up some okera bugs into his
165
hand from the grasses by the river where they grew and
showed them to Sayuri, who stood by his side.
The okera squirmed about for a while in the palm of
Kappei’s hand until, as if surprised, they moved their heads
and tails about busily and dropped onto the grass with a thud.
With the squirmy sensation lingering in his hand, Kappei had
felt there was something loveable about those little insects. A
smile flickered on Sayuri’s face. He noticed her comparing him
with the insects in his hand. Kappei had been touched by her
gentleness.
Meetings had been held frequently about the matter of repairing
the bridge. His mother Onami and his grandmother,
who was still living at the time, took turns in attending the
meetings. A system was set up whereby each household was to
be assessed for its “fair share” of contribution.
“Since Kappei’s still a child and his father’s gone, couldn’t
we be exempt from the assessment?”
After the meetings, his mother and grandmother would always
sit by the fire, feeling lonely and hanging their heads.
The villagers who came to the first O-bon ceremony after his
father’s death had talked of the subject.
“At least if it’s a stone bridge it won’t be washed away.”
Since his father had lost his life in attempting to rescue
someone his household was granted an exemption from the
payments for the new bridge. The one who had proposed
building a stone bridge was the elder Chiyomatsu. But in the
end, as it turned out, the plan had never been realized.
The reasons given were: not enough stonemasons, and probably
not enough money. Escorting his mother, Kappei had
been present at that meeting. The idea of a stone bridge had
left a strong impression on him.
At the age of fifteen or sixteen he had gone to work in the
mountains and he had been a laborer here and there and so he
CHAPTER 3
166
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
had begun to gain some experience out in the world. When he
saw the magnificent stone double-arched bridge known as the
“Spectacle Bridge” in the Mt. Aso highlands, it made a deep
impression on him.
Why was it that listening to the fire that burned Sayuri’s
body had brought back to mind those childhood scenes?
It was not as if he’d been thinking constantly for all these
years of Moonshadow Bridge and its connection to his father’s
death. And the Isara River and the big old nettle tree that lay
submerged beneath the waters of the dam—along with the
meeting that night and the horns of the serow—they were all
phantom visions. He shook his head as if in disbelief.
He was recalling his childhood days. The faces of the old
ones who had sometimes scolded him and sometimes given
him affection—they all came back clearly. The smiling face of
the toothless old man with the cane who climbed up to the
fields to pick for them those bright red tomatoes that ripened
in the scorching summer sun. The beads of sweat running
down old Rokusuke who chased him with a pole when he’d
climbed one of his pear trees to steal fruit. The young girls returning
from the city, the beggars and the performers who
came and went along Utazaka Hill. Lead on by some unknown
prompting, Kappei talked on and on.
“I think we should rebuild Moonshadow Bridge.”
Oshizu was quick to tease Kappei about this, and here and
there a laugh broke out among the group, but soon afterwards
they fell into silence. When the rain let up a bit, the sound of
the burning body became particularly noticeable. Suddenly,
cutting through this mood Ohina said,
“Last night I dreamed of a bridge.”
Everyone knew that Ohina sometimes had dreams that told
of some truth.
167
“It wasn’t a dream of the bridge that washed away, it was a
dream of that old rope suspension bridge that was Moonshadow
Bridge way back when.”
Kappei didn’t know about the days of a hanging rope bridge.
Chiyomatsu pursed his lips, drew a puff of smoke and laid his
pipe on top of the table. Even in this age of cigarettes the old
man would simply cut them up and transfer the tobacco to his
little pipe to smoke.
Masahiko found it somehow touching to see how country
folks treated tobacco. He had no idea how the people who’d
been separated from Amazoko Village had lived most of their
lives, but he could see that they still got together from time to
time at funerals and exchanged news. He realized that he
wasn’t beyond being overpowered by a person like Oshizu, but
he also wondered if he wasn’t being drawn in and charmed by
all of them. With this thought in mind he cracked a wry smile.
The world was more profound than what he’d read about in
the books he had on his desk. Somehow it seemed that just seeing
Kappei’s grin was enough to soften his heart. A while back
Omomo had whispered to her mother, “Sayuri was a spirit of
the water.” But, he wondered, what is my spirit? Among these
people it seems death is not the cessation of everything.
They say our generation is one of deprivation and loss, and
that we take nihilism as a fashion. But it seems these people of
Amazoko, who’ve lost their village, have resurrected the real
meaning of existence.
n
The windblown rain didn’t let up. The spray striking against
the eaves created a fog that crept inside the room through the
cracks in the entryway.
Everyone drew their chairs together and huddled around
the furnace in the crematory. In front of it was a large concrete
CHAPTER 3
168
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
stand on which Sayuri’s coffin had been placed. A brief sutra
was read and the final words of parting were said. After the
cremation was finished the remains would be placed on the
stand again and the bones would be removed with tongs.
“Looks like we’re in for it now. That rain’s really pouring
down out there.”
Several people hung around the window and peered outside.
The crematory was set back in the woods on a gentle
slope that opened out onto the plain of fields through which
the funeral procession had passed. The rice plants, just ripening
and turning color, were bent and shaken by the winds that
blasted down from the hilltops. In front of the crematory the
winds whipped against the roots of the trees, forming sudden
updrafts that blew the rain back upwards again.
“We can’t go back in weather like this.”
“Well, it should stop in a while.”
As the sounds of the rainstorm periodically swelled and
then diminished, the talk among the group lulled and then resumed
along with it. The flames charged the air with sounds.
Trying to remove the encrusted dregs from his pipe, Chiyomatsu
knocked its bowl against the swollen joint of his middle
finger. His movement seemed strange to Masahiko. After
striking the pipe several times there was still some fire left in
the ashes he had removed. Unperturbed, the old man calmly
held the live coals in his hand and then after a while rolled
them into a lump and dropped it by his foot, where he finally
stamped it out with his sandal. His hakama was open, showing
his feet, which in their white tabi socks looked like those of a
classic joruri doll.
Glancing down on the spent ashes the old man bit into his
pipe, making sucking noises in the bowl. Taking it from his
mouth and blinking rapidly he called out.
“Ohina-san.”
169
Ohina, who had been absorbed in listening to the sounds of
the burner, raised her head and spoke. “A long time ago, Moonshadow
Bridge, it was a rope suspension bridge.”
Several people nodded their heads.
“Well, last night in my dream I saw that suspension bridge.”
With the driving rain pelting down still harder people were
worrying about getting back. Masahiko noticed expressions of
relief settle over their faces as they listened to Ohina talk.
“Back in the days of the old suspension bridge there was Oak
Mountain on the far side.”
Chairs squeaked as the group drew closer and people murmured
in agreement that there had been an Oak Mountain
over there.
“There aren’t many of us left now who can remember that
suspension bridge.”
Hearing this, Chiyomatsu urged Ohina to continue.
“What sort of dream was it?”
“What sort? Just a dream.”
“Your dreams often turn out true.”
“Not really. Most of them don’t mean much at all. In my
dream I couldn’t get across the bridge.”
“Well, in the end that bridge broke and fell in. That’s how it
ended up.”
“Right, it collapsed finally, and with those people on it.”
“Those people?”
“Yes, those people. In my dream.”
“There was a pilgrim with a child, wasn’t there?”
“Yes—my dream was about what happened after that.”
To the listeners it felt as if their eyes were being turned inward
to search for something. Then Oshizu broke in.
“That time when the suspension bridge broke I went to take
a look too. I was still young and it was in the fall. Part of the
bridge had given way and was hanging down. And then for
CHAPTER 3
170
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
some reason, on the far bank a group of monkeys was playing
about at the entrance to the bridge; taking turns entering it,
climbing up and down the severed part and looking around. It
was something no humans could have done.
“They romped about on the dangling section, playing with it
like a toy, as if it were laden with grapes.
“The monkeys were on the far bank and the people were on
the near side and they were both watching each other.
“For the monkeys, even if the bridge fell in it was no problem.
They could go back and forth across the valley without
any trouble at all.
“For the humans to cross, they’d have to take off their clothing.
In summer you could do it, but . . .” Apparently sensing
the need to work the conversation back to the main topic, Oshizu
stopped herself and turned to ask Ohina in a formal tone
of voice, “And then what happened in your dream?”
“Well, I was on the near side of the bridge and I started
singing that song.
The going is all right
But we know not the return
In the middle of the bridge
Don’t look back
Throw in a rice cake
If you haven’t got a rice cake
Throw in a hairpin
If you haven’t got that either
Throw in a baby
If you haven’t got a baby
Then throw yourself in
“In the old days we used to sing that song when we were
rocking infants and playing with them. Crossing over a rope
171
suspension bridge probably wasn’t the best time for singing a
song like that, but in my dream that’s what came out. I sang it
with all my heart. And as I sang, the leaves in the valley turned
to the red colors of fall. It was so beautiful. It was a brocade
pattern, different from any foliage I’d ever seen before. And
then—the fallen suspension bridge slowly came back to life, rising
up and extending itself back across to the near side. I wondered
what on earth could be going on. That suspension
bridge was the guardian spirit of Amazoko. It was the guardian
of that flooded stalactite cavern.
“That suspension bridge was made of vines cut from the violet
wisteria that hung from the big oak trees and of the white
wisteria that hung from the cassia trees by the prayer rock on
Mt. Ontake. I immediately started singing a soothing song. The
landscape was so incredibly beautiful. The area about my feet
turned completely black. I felt as if I were about to be sucked
away into it, so I sang out. A blaze of color flashed from the
ripened persimmon tree on Utazaka Hill and I thought to myself—that
must be someone’s life passing on.
In the evening
When the wind fills the valley
I miss someone
In the mist
A single ripe persimmon
A single remaining life
“Suddenly, the bridge of wisteria vines extended itself to the
near side. The fog thickened and thinned, again and again. And
while this was happening the ripened persimmon tree I’d just
seen disappeared—even though just a moment ago it had been
a brilliant vermilion red. It was gone. Whose life could it have
been that went out, I wondered. Suddenly it had vanished.
CHAPTER 3
172
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“It seemed that someone from another place had come to
Amazoko. Perhaps it might have been a wandering yamabushi
mountain priest. Or it might have been an itinerant blind woman
musician. Hadn’t there been any sound? If it had been an experienced
blind musician, before crossing the bridge she’d have
played a piece on the biwa and sung a song to let people know
she wasn’t someone suspicious. Or if it had been a yamabushi
mountain priest, he’d have given a blast on his conch shell to announce
his passing through. I tried to listen for a sound. It
seemed it must have been a traveler who’d met misfortune along
the way. When the light of the persimmon tree went out amidst
the fog I imagined it must have been for someone who’d become
an offering. And so this happened because I sang that song.
“Right in front of my eyes I saw proof that the severed
bridge had come back to life. There really was such a being,
the Lord Guardian of the stalactite cavern. In the past, it had
lived in the belly of the mountains. Sometimes it came and
went about, and it might get hungry. In the daytime it let the
monkeys play about and it let the people pass through. And in
the middle of the night it let the creatures of the dark pass by
too. But in the evenings, the fog rolled in, and at those times it
couldn’t be helped if on occasion someone who passed by
along with the crabs might become an offering to the guardian
spirit of the bridge.
“On foggy nights when it had the chance, the Guardian
would cross over the suspension bridge, slip into the village,
and look down from the top of Utazaka Hill. And the people
who looked at Moonshadow Bridge were branded with the
mark of plum petals. The guardian of the rope bridge would
leave a mark that showed they belonged to Amazoko Village.
I’ve seen the marks myself.
“And when Masahito-sama left the village, I went to see him
off. I watched him turn back to look from the other side of
173
Moonshadow Bridge. In my dream it was a moonlit night and
the fog had rolled in. Masahiko-san, I went to see your grandfather
off. There was a mark of plum petals on his neck—
wasn’t there?”
Masahiko was confused. Suddenly he recalled images of his
grandfather’s figure from behind—watering the trees in the
garden, or when he was being taken to the mental hospital, or
sitting beneath the ginkgo tree, or doing other such things—
but he never had a chance to notice whether or not he had
such a mark. It didn’t seem that Ohina was expecting an answer
from him.
“Moonshadow Bridge was the guardian of the stalactite cavern
of the drowned village of Amazoko. That was the guardian
spirit of Amazoko.”
Excited expressions lit up people’s faces and hushed voices
rose up here and there.
“I too cross that bridge in my dreams.”
“I forget it in the daytime, but when I sleep I return in my
dreams.”
“Me too. When I dream it’s always about Amazoko.”
The voices were soft but clear. Their sounds were lovely.
Masahiko thought; this is the first time I’ve ever heard such
voices.
The man tending the furnace opened the door of the crematory
room, wiped away his sweat and took a look at what
was going on in the waiting room. He nodded his head as if indicating
that he well understood what was happening. Then he
walked over to the window to look out at the rain.
Her eyes still fixed on this man, Oshizu appeared to be sunk
deeply in thought as she spoke.
“Everyone’s talking of how they forget the sunken village
during the daytime, but when they sleep at night they reCHAPTER
3
174
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
member it. Now, because of Ohina’s dream, it’s coming back to
me. The women stop by my place and they’ve told the story.
“A long time ago, on a rainy, windy day there was a pilgrim
carrying a baby on her back who’d come to cross the suspension
bridge. In crossing, she slipped and fell in. According to
another person who happened to arrive there about the same
time, the bridge was swaying about on that day. After considering
whether or not he should try to cross he decided it was
no day to take chances. Just as he was turning back, he saw the
pilgrim starting to cross from the opposite side. Thinking it
was too dangerous to try to cross with a baby, he looked on
nervously. And then, just as he’d feared, he saw her foot slip.
She flailed about for a moment as if she were swimming. He
called out, but in an instant she fell. He ran to the town to tell
the people and everyone rushed to the riverbank and looked
but they couldn’t find the mother or child. Before long, however,
they located the body of the mother. But there was no
baby. The person who told them about it said it was definitely
a young woman on a pilgrimage and that she’d been carrying
a baby on her back, and so they searched for a baby. But had
she really been carrying a baby? Or had it been a trick of the
eyes? And it seemed that in the time it would take to search,
the baby would probably already be carried out to Oki no
Miya. While they were talking of abandoning the search, the
storm let up a bit and they turned back, saying it’s about time
to build a new bridge.
“An energetic fellow took the lead and the others followed
along behind. Then he came back, shifting about awkwardly,
so everyone assumed the rope bridge had fallen, as they’d
feared. Then the man spoke out, gesturing with his hands and
feet.
“‘There’s a baby—I saw it! Over there!’
“‘A baby? Are you sure? Where was it?’
175
“Everyone said how wonderful it was that he’d found the
baby. The man sank to the ground, sat and pointed toward the
bridge.
“‘At the entrance to the bridge—the guardian spirit, he made
a basket cradle and he was looking after the baby.’
“‘A basket? How could a basket have gotten there?’”
As the questioning continued they began to understand.
What the man was saying was that, amidst the wind and rain,
the guardian of the stalactite cave—who sometimes took on the
form of a wisteria vine bridge—had appeared. There he’d
shown his true nature by coiling himself around the entrance
to the bridge, and in that coil he’d carefully placed the baby
and was rocking it. So according to his story, it seemed that the
baby had been put in a cradle and was being taken care of.
“‘The baby looked like it was in good sprits. It was clapping
its hands and sucking its fingers. Really, it’s true. You have to
go and see. And there was also a strange grating sound. The
guardian god’s scales were opening and closing as it chased
away flies. Its scales were making a grating, rubbing sound.’
“As he went on like this the people were greatly surprised
and they all went to look. By the roots of a big cedar tree at the
entrance to the bridge, a lovely baby was sleeping. They
couldn’t see any guardian spirit. All that was there was a nice
cradle made of susuki reeds and dwarf bamboo leaves. But
when they looked over on the other side, the rope coils of the
bridge appeared to be flapping about, like a skin being cast off
by a giant serpent or dragon.”
One person who had been listening closely to Oshizu’s story
spoke out in a reserved voice.
“Well, in recent years it’s mostly stayed back inside the stalactite
cavern and hardly comes out. But sometimes people
coming and going along Utazaka catch a glimpse of it. A few
have even seen its tail.”
CHAPTER 3
176
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“And by any chance, was that baby Oai-sama?”
The atmosphere grew more intimate. Everyone could recall
that story. Ohina turned her head slowly and looked at
Masahiko.
“Your grandfather Masahito’s grandmother lived to be over a
hundred years old, and in her old age she took in that baby and
raised it. She named her Ai, so she came to be called Oai-sama.
She said it was a child who had been entrusted to her by the
Lord of Amazoko. She gave it her best care in bringing it up.”
Masahiko had thought this was just going to be the telling of
Ohina’s dream of the night before, but the story became so interwoven
with the stories of Chiyomatsu and Oshizu that he
had no idea where the dream had merged with the others’ stories.
It was said that the stalactite cave now lay at the bottom of
the dammed-up lake. Judging from photographs, it seemed the
stalactite cave wasn’t a very comforting place. The cavern
twisted its way along, issuing from deep within the belly of the
mountain. From its roof hung countless limestone stalactites,
in the shapes of icicles and breasts. From them, drops of underground
water slowly dripped down. Flowing through the
cave was a river that made a faint sound. Could there have
been any fish in it? It is thought that even today, deep down in
the earth some of the original forms of life are still alive. But
for Masahiko, born and raised in the city, this thought gave
him an uneasy feeling.
How did the first humans who entered that cavern feel—going
in there alone, without even having lights? It was not hard to
imagine how people could have thought that in such a cave there
must be a guardian spirit who inhabited it and governed the
mountains and water. It seemed the old people who gathered for
Sayuri’s funeral procession still believed in the protective god of
Amazoko Village, even if they didn’t actually see its form. They
177
spoke of how, from time to time, it would emerge from its
dwelling place, change its body into the shape of a wisteria vine
bridge and come down into the village and place the mark of
plum blossom petals on the backs of the villagers’ necks as a
birthmark. Masahiko could hardly believe it, but he found himself
wanting to touch the back of his own neck with his hand.
Piecing together the threads of the stories so far, it seemed
that both Sayuri and Oai, who had brought her up, had come
from other villages. According to the stories he’d heard over
the past few days from Ohina and the other villagers, this
woman Oai, who had been a midwife, was also thought of as a
person who had assumed a sort of divine nature. She had
come into the village as a baby, entrusted to it by the patron
spirit of Amazoko. Masahito’s grandmother—in other words
Masahiko’s great-great-grandmother—had taken her in. Thus
her role in looking after babies had come to her from birth,
leading to her becoming a midwife; the work she’d carried out
faithfully throughout her long life. As for her relationship to
Sayuri, the newborn baby of a wayfarer who died as she was
passing through the village, everyone imagined that Oai-sama
regarded her as her own child. And now Sayuri, who had taken
over Oai-sama’s duties, was dead.
n
“The bones haven’t cooled completely yet, but with weather
like this . . .”
The attendant opened the partition door and removed
Sayuri’s still-warm bones from the hearth. Everyone got up together.
No one spoke as a wave of heat spread out around the
platform.
“Here are the tongs. Would the closest family member remove
the bones please?” The attendant spoke in a low voice,
probably trying to avoid sounding too business-like.
CHAPTER 3
178
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
Everyone glanced at each other uneasily and no one came
forward to pick up the large chop stick-like implements. Not
only was there no closest relative, there wasn’t even a single
blood relative among them. The voices of Chiyomatsu and
Ohina could be heard, expressing hesitation. Then there was a
request for the woman from the temple. Being called upon as
the woman of the temple, the young woman waved her hand
in refusal.
“Oh I really couldn’t. I have almost no relationship with the
deceased. The funeral was another matter, but this, I . . .”
With a chuckle, Oshizu remarked, “Funerals are business
matters too, you know,” and then for moment there was silence.
“Well in that case . . .”
Chiyomatsu picked up the implements and continued, “I’m
not a relative, but seeing as I’m the oldest here, I suppose . . .”
The worker continued, “Would you start with the leg bones
please, and place them in the urn in a sitting position. The two
legs first, and then the shins, the kneecaps, and the thighbones.
They’ve burned very cleanly, I see. She was still young.
For forty-two or so, these bones are quite beautiful. Here are
the hipbones. They’re a bit heavy, so would someone with
strong hands pick them up please? Isn’t there anyone who will
lend a hand . . ? Well then, it looks like I’ll have to do it myself.
There’s a knack to it.”
The attendant seemed particularly concerned that the justcremated
bones be placed into the urn in precisely the correct
fashion. Following his instructions, silently, they carefully picked
up the bones and placed them into the urn.
“Hmm, now where’s the Adam’s apple?”
He raked through the bones, among the ashes, with the
tongs.
“Do women have Adam’s apples too?” someone asked.
179
“Well, they’re not so noticeable, but they have them. But I
can’t seem to find it here. Seems it’s missing. The body burned
well. These bones are very cleanly done. Sometimes the bones
get all blackened.”
Oshizu looked at Kappei across from her, trying to avoid
touching the tools. His expression seemed different from before.
His big eyes were blinking and it seemed as if his body
had shrunk, as if he’d bottled himself up in a transparent jar.
It seemed to Oshizu that her dream of the night before had
proven true. Last night Kappei had appeared in the moonlit
valley, transformed into a crab. He’d been naked, like a crab
that’s just shed its shell. Did that show the form that he was
born into, or did it point to the form he would take in the
world to come? In any case, seeing Kappei, who was normally
so manly, in the moonlight on the banks of the Isara River
looking thin from having shed his shell—that had been quite a
surprise. Whatever wish could this shedding of the shell have
been expressing? In the midst of her dream Oshizu had
thought for a while and then spoken.
“It can’t be helped. Since you’ve shed your whole shell, right
down to the tips of your claws and eyeballs, you’ll have to go
on with that soft body and crawl your way through the valley
below Moonshadow Bridge and make it to the village of Amazoko.”
“Is that Oshizu’s voice?” Kappei the crab asked, his voice
shuddering.
“Look, I’ve just shed the covering over my eyes and so my
eyes are still watery. Even if you tell me to go to Amazoko, my
eyes haven’t formed properly yet.”
“Is that so? Your eyes are still watery and unformed? Well,
there are times it’s better to have no eyes at all. It can help get
you along in the world by not seeing things that are better not
seen.”
CHAPTER 3
180
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
Telling him to come a bit closer, Oshizu reached out and
placed her palm on Kappei the crab. Then with her fingertips
she stroked the horns on the right and left sides, where his
eyes stuck out.
“Look here! They’ve melted away on both the right and the
left. You don’t need eyes any more!”
She spoke with a gentle voice and released the crab into the
water. Kappei the crab skittered upstream along the Isara
River at the bottom of the lake. It appeared to require quite an
effort to go upstream since the force of the river was powerful.
“I’m counting on you—with your water-eyes. Look, behind
you everyone’s following. Go back to the sunken village. If you
were still in human form you wouldn’t be able to get there. But
as a crab, now you can go.”
Oshizu had leaned over, calling out as she watched. The crab
Kappei, with all the others following along after him, had
pushed on forward, flopping along and thrashing through the
water plants that stuck to them, time after time, making their
way upward along the water pathways of Amazoko.
Oshizu had begun relating the tale of last night’s dream to
the silent crowd when all the bones had been taken out. A
while back everyone had spoken of how they seemed to forget
about dreams during the daytime, but when they slipped into
bed they could return to Amazoko in their dreams and meet
with the people of long ago once again.
“At the bottom of the river there were water plants. In their
midst was a beautiful white plum tree, still in blossom, swaying
gently in the water. You can’t get to the bottom of the lake in
human form. Thanks to Kappei’s changing into a crab he was
able to go there. That’s the way I get back to Amazoko too.”
For a while everyone’s talk was about the dream.
“Your grandmother, has she been showing up in your
dreams these days?”
181
“Well, not in mine, but she’s been in yours, hasn’t she? And
she didn’t have any bad things to say, did she?”
“Yes, it was a good dream all right. Over by Koushin’s place
I was carrying the washing and your grandmother brought
some pomegranates. She took them out of her bag and they
had a nice color. She gave me some and told me, ‘These fruits
will give you a long life. Take some to your mother.’”
“Oh, they were from that pomegranate tree, were they? That
old tree by the washing place was a real old one. It had such
beautiful fruit. It was grandmother’s joy to take them to people
who weren’t feeling well. So she went to see you, did she?”
“The pomegranate tree and the washing place are both at
the bottom of the lake now.”
“But it’s good you had that sort of dream. My grandmother
used to shout at folks, and even in dreams I imagine her voice
gets pretty loud. But if you had that kind of dream, she must
be all right. It’s good to hear.”
“It certainly was a nice dream. Her voice was just the same
as when she was alive. It was good to see her in such spirits.”
“It sure brings back old times. Now it’s only in dreams that
we can see those people.”
In their dreams they saw visions of people digging clams,
and building the stone walls about Amemiya Shrine, and passing
through the valley of vines carrying firewood on their
backs, and gathering mushrooms. And the women were filling
bags with the fruit of the silvervine that covered the valley.
“And between my dreams too they’re working. And there’s
no pain and they’re happy. And when I wake up I’m not sad.
It’s strange; even though I can’t really go back to Amazoko I go
there in dreams. I want to go back again.”
“There’s a song from way back called “the path of dreams.”
It was Chiyomatsu who brought the conversation to a conclusion.
Oshizu nodded; it was owing to Chiyomatsu’s advanced
CHAPTER 3
182
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
years that he had such composure. There could be no doubt
that Kappei’s appearing in the dream in the form of a crab and
shedding his shell had signified that he had some role to carry
out. And that crab—there in the valley of Moonshadow Bridge,
back in the old days when it had been a hanging bridge of
vines—its trembling must have been on account of Kappei’s
carrying the souls of all those who wanted to return to Amazoko.
And if one were to follow the course of the river along
the valley that passed beneath the bridge of hanging vines,
wouldn’t it be possible to walk on the pathway into the village
that had been closed off by the dam?
Kappei, who had returned to life after falling from the dam
construction site, possessed the power to carry people’s souls.
Hadn’t he also been serving as the guardian spirit of both Oai
and Sayuri? Oshizu believed it was her praying from the bottom
of her heart that had caused him to appear as a crab. And
if Kappei took on the form of a crab, she believed he could
travel to where the guardian of the cave lived. Everyone, she
thought, has been asking how to get back to the village at the
bottom of the lake—but haven’t Kappei and Ohina and I found
pathways already?
Oshizu’s eyes met those of Ohina, seated beside Kappei.
Ohina nodded. A woman like her understood such things. It
was Ohina who had first made a point of bringing up the talk
of the dreams at this place. She glanced up at Kappei once
again. Water appeared to be flowing in the midst of his eyes.
“It’s because I stroked him with my finger in my dream that
this big man’s eyes have now become like the eyes of a trembling
crab. Go on, go on, with those eyes.” Urging him on, she
gazed at the storm outside.
When Ohina began telling the stories of her dreams, Masahito
also started to feel that he was in a place where people returned
183
in dreams. It wasn’t only these two old women and Chiyomatsu—it
seemed that the others too returned to the village at
the bottom of the lake and met with all the people there. It
seemed there was no border between their times of waking and
those of dreaming. They could travel freely between both.
That’s right, he thought; when grandfather was spending his
time around the ginkgo at Nakano Station he must have been
looking for a passageway back to this kind of world. Even right
by that station where the trains and people passed by ceaselessly
there was an entrance to the village beneath the lake.
“What about these bones?” Chiyomatsu asked. He looked
around, holding the container he’d been handed by the attendant.
Omomo turned around with a surprised expression. The
look in her eyes, peering into the urn of ashes, seemed to
Masahiko so very gentle. To old Chiyomatsu, likely it held a
deeper meaning. He looked at Omomo and asked,
“Will you carry them?”
“If you think it’s all right.”
“Yes, you’re the best one to do it.”
The ones who had handled the tongs looked on in silence at
the faces of Omomo and the woman from the temple.
“We’ll leave them at the temple for a time. Omomo will
carry them and I’ll go with her.”
The squeaking door blew open with a strong gust of wind
and then quickly slammed shut again with a bang.
The gust that had blown into the room brushed about the
floor. As it passed over the stand it blew up a dark, smoke-like
puff of the remaining ashes of Sayuri. All together, everyone
gasped.
“It looks like this isn’t going to let up. It’ll be getting dark.
Are we going to go out and get soaked?”
“Even if we get wet, let’s go. It can’t be helped.”
“What about our mourning wear?” one of the women asked.
CHAPTER 3
184
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“That’s right, our mourning clothes. We have another funeral
coming soon.”
“I wonder if they’ll dry out by then.”
And at that they all remembered that there was one more
person who had died. The funeral of Jimpei, the village assembly
member who had died in the horse stable fire, had
been delayed on account of the autopsy performed on his
body. Suddenly an agitated, uneasy feeling came over them.
“We’ll be busy, so let’s get back soon.”
“Right. We can’t just wait around here until morning for the
storm to pass.”
When the urn was handed to Omomo everyone stood up together.
“Well let’s get moving, even if we’re going to get drenched.”
And so, talking as they went, they set out into the midst of
the wind and rain. Women and men alike hiked up the hems
of their robes, tying them with towels and cloths. Several in
front got caught by the wind as they set out along the path
through the rice fields. Those same rice plants that had looked
so lush when the group passed through earlier in the day were
now being tossed and flailed about by the wind. Kappei and
Masahiko held back the door, which looked as if it were about
to be blown away. The women made their way out. Last among
them was Oshizu. Before going out she looked up at Kappei
and whispered, “It’s thanks to you that we know the way to
Amazoko.”
Kappei smiled back at her. When she left, Oshizu tied up the
black train of her kimono. Showing beneath her white undergarments,
surprisingly, was the sight of a bright red sash. As
she walked briskly behind the others, her thin old legs kicked
up the red cloth. Omomo, holding the urn of ashes in her
arms, turned about, faced the rear and took a step back. Her
hair blew up and played about her face. Then she turned again
185
and headed off once more. For some reason, Masahiko was
startled by the sight of her.
All about the rice fields, scarecrows made of the feathers of
dead crows were being tossed about by the wind as if they
were dancing. Seeing the people in their drenched black kimonos
walking amidst the feathers of the dead crows flailing
all about, Masahiko had the feeling of being caught up in a medieval
world of sorcerers and magic.
An opening appeared in the rain clouds. For a brief moment
the sun broke through and lit up the rice fields in bright green.
And then in an instant it grew dark again. Kappei muttered,
“Looks like the rice is going to be spoiled again this year. And
it had been ripening so nicely.”
Masahiko was at a loss as to how to reply to such talk.
“Do you grow rice?”
“Well, I don’t have any fields myself but when we get these
storms I worry about how the rice is doing.”
Another gust of wind, one that seemed it might blow the
door down, blasted away. As the two of them held back the
door, Masahiko remembered something. Back when they had
come through the fields, Ohina had remarked as she looked at
the rice, “If Sayuri were still alive she’d have been so happy to
see the colors of this rice.”
It seemed that Kappei too must have been thinking of
Sayuri in this way.
“Masahiko, this isn’t just any old wind, you know.”
As the two of them held the door shut they realized that the
attendant was there on the inside, waiting.
“This one looks different from the usual storms. I think you’d
better take care in getting home,” said the voice from within.
Kappei called out in a big voice, “You okay in there?” and
knocked on the door in a solicitous manner.
“If this place is damaged, everything will come to an end.”
CHAPTER 3
186
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“All right then, but Chikazawa-san, Chikazawa-san.”
With something apparently on his mind, Kappei knocked
harder on the door this time and called to the attendant.
“Sorry, but I forgot something. There’s something important
I forgot. Could you let me in for just a minute?”
He turned and looked at Masahiko.
“Could you wait just a moment? Just hold the door so it
doesn’t blow off. I’ll be back soon.”
Apologizing again, he entered with a hushed silence and
placed his hands carefully on a small box covered with a white
handkerchief.
“These last ashes of Sayuri . . . It’s just too much.”
His lips pursed in silence, he glanced around uneasily. But
then, spotting a nylon wrapping sheet covered with polka dots,
fluttering in the wind where it had caught on a branch, he
carefully wrapped it around the small white box to protect it
from getting wet. Then Masahiko noticed Kappei, bent over,
clutching the grass with one hand and breathing heavily into
the ground. The wide shoulders of his heavy kimono were
blown back, flapping in the wind.
It had only been the day before that Masahiko had met this
warm-hearted man when he came upon the dead body of
Sayuri near the dam. Kappei stood up, seemingly having forgotten
about Masahiko, and started to walk off into the rain.
Masahiko followed, noticing the splotches of mud covering
Kappei’s formal hakama leggings.
n
When they arrived at the temple a young, cool-eyed priest
was waiting for them. He invited Masahiko into the room with
his family. He told them he was succeeding to the position as
the main priest here and that he had just returned from Honzan,
the head temple, where he had completed his training.
187
In the priests’ quarters, the people who had returned from
the crematory were changing out of their wet mourning
clothes. Exchanging greetings while they looked up at the condition
of the sky, they seemed to be preparing to leave for
home. Judging from their familiar manner in saying their
good-byes, it seemed that this temple was used not only for funerals,
but that it was also a place where the people of the old
village of Amazoko, who were normally separated, met for important
discussions. This was evident from their friendly, relaxed
voices. From the younger priest’s greeting, it seemed that
he had already been told about Masahiko.
“You’ve come a long way to get back here. I hear you spread
your grandfather’s ashes by yourself. I’m sorry I couldn’t say a
prayer with you.”
Not knowing how to reply, Masahiko lowered his head in
confusion.
The elderly priest, seeing him in this state, opened an old
hand-stitched book and showed it to him. On it, in bold black
ink characters was written, “Record of Contributors to the Rebuilding
of Joko Temple.” It was dated the third month of the
twelfth year of Meiji.
“The temple was burned down during the Seinan War. This
is the record book from the time when the contributions were
made for the rebuilding. There were donations from many
people, but if you look here you can see that the name of your
great-great-grandfather, ‘Aso Mikihiko,’ is written at the head
of the list.
“All the wood used in the temple—for the pillars of the hall
of the Buddha, for the beams and rafters, the carved panels on
the transom, the flooring in the inner sanctuary, the stairways,
and elsewhere—it all came from the forests of the Aso family.
That was about ten years into the Meiji Era. All the details are
recorded here. If you take a look you can see for yourself. It
was such excellent wood. These days, no matter how hard you
CHAPTER 3
188
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
look, you won’t find anything like it. Fortunately, when Amazoko
was flooded, the temple was outside the flood zone so it
escaped destruction. Now people from other villages continue
to come here to worship the Buddha.
“I heard from Ohina and the others about your return.
“The dam was built during Masahito’s time here and after it
was finished he went off to Tokyo. Once in a while some word
of him reached us back here, but since he stopped contacting
us we hesitated to try reaching him. So the other day when we
heard the rumor that you had come and spread his ashes by
the dam, well it really was quite a sad surprise.
“It seems your coming here and what happened to Sayuri
had some fated connection. If you take things back to their
roots, Oai-sama, who brought up Sayuri, was connected to
your family. In any case, the past has returned and now a
grandson has returned to this temple that’s remained here in
memory of the Aso family.
“It’s weighed heavily on us, thinking we couldn’t do anything,
but now at last the day has come when we can offer
prayers for him.
“You’ve made quite a trip coming here. Since there’s nothing
left of the old Silk Estate or of the land around it the only
thing that remains is this temple. We’ve been waiting and hoping
we might be able to perform the funeral rites for him as
soon as you returned from the crematorium.”
From the side, his plumpish wife added, “For ages now it’s
been said that the rebuilding of the temple was made possible
by the Aso family. We have always hoped we would
be able to meet the relatives. We greatly appreciate your
coming.
“And both last night at the wake and this morning too, all
the old people have been saying they feel as if Masahito has
come back to life and the old days have returned. We’re all
happy about it.
189
“We don’t quite know what to think about what happened to
Sayuri-san, but Oai-san, who brought her up, said she was connected
to the old estate of your family. It’s said that your great
grandmother Nazuna—no, she must’ve been your great-greatgrandmother—she
brought up Oai-san. It’s an old, old story
but it’s said that the baby Oai was not the child of a human,
but of the Lord of Amazoko.”
The elderly priest interrupted abruptly.
“Now don’t start nonsense like that. How could she be anything
but a human’s child? This sort of thing is the way women
are always causing trouble.”
“I really have no idea whose child Oai was or where she
came from. I still wonder about it. And Sayuri-san too; she was
the orphaned child of a woman who fell by the roadside.”
“Well that’s just what this temple is for. The Aso family took
care of the child in place of us. We’re the ones who were taught
the Providence of the Buddha. Now we can carry out a small
act in return.”
The young priest, who had been nodding with the sleeves of
his kimono folded across his body as he listened to the stories
of his parents, now relaxed his arms and expressed a smile of
relief.
“As you’ve heard, you are most welcome to stay here as long
you need to. And your biwa, I’ve been wondering about that.
Do you play it?”
When Masahiko told them of his grandfather’s having a
biwa made from the mulberry tree of the old estate, the family
of the priest, including the young wife who was waiting behind
them, gasped all at once.
“But I know almost nothing about the old estate.”
At that, from the back of the room, the elder priest’s plump
wife called out in a faint voice and reached out with one hand
as if holding on to something.
CHAPTER 3
190
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“Ah yes, there were a lot of mulberry trees around there. It
was called the Silk Estate. And there was a very nice spring
there too. When I first came here as a young bride I visited the
house. I was given some mulberries and I drank the water
there too. There was one big mulberry tree there by the well.
Was the biwa you brought with you possibly made from that
mulberry tree?”
Masahiko, feeling as if he’d been asked by the family to show
it to them, stood up. As he walked along the finely built
porch—thinking of how it probably was made of wood taken
from the mountains at the time when Mikihiko lived—he recalled
something about his grandfather Masahito and about
the house in Nakano.
He had been a man of few words. But although his words
had been few, now they came back to life in Masahiko’s ears
with deep resonance. It struck him how his grandfather had
belonged to the same world as the people who had been telling
their stories back at the crematorium. His grandfather’s attempting
to return to the village that had been taken from him
was similar to these people’s way of returning in dreams with
a clarity of feeling exceeding even what they had felt in the
days past. No one else in his family had noticed that.
It seemed that his old lost village must have been separated
from the rest of the world and remained as a pure unmixed
stratum of the older world.
At the time the girl they called Oai was a baby it had been
feared that she might not be the child of a human. According
the dreams of Oshizu and Ohina, the guardian spirit of the village,
who was said to be able to change into the form of a giant
snake, had transformed his body into the Moonshadow
hanging bridge. He had dropped a woman pilgrim who had
been carrying a baby into the ravine, and then he had made
himself into a cradle and rocked the baby. Normally he would
191
stay sleeping way off in the stalactite cave of Isara River, but
on occasion he would venture out and take on the form of the
suspension bridge. There he would check on the people coming
and going to the village. Occasionally he would find a
stranger from the world beyond and make a sacrificial offering
of that person.
This person called Nazuna-san—they say she’s my greatgreat-grandmother,
but this is the first I’ve ever heard of her.
My grandfather Masahito never mentioned a thing to me
about a baby whom the villagers had feared and who had been
rescued and brought up there. What sort of taboo could have
kept my grandfather from telling me of it?
Masahiko remembered something. That time in the car, on
the way to the mental institution. His grandfather’s words had
been called out in a low, sorrow-stricken voice. So that must
have been what he was talking about.
“Masahiko! The string of the biwa has snapped. It’s over
now. It’s no use. Just shove me in.”
He must have been thinking of what happened during the
war in Okinawa. Every time they passed a car on the expressway
he had called out in a low voice.
“There goes one! Blasting away,” he’d muttered. And the
thundering, rumbling sound of the cars and trucks on the
highway came swirling around in his head.
“Go on Japan, blow yourself to bits. Blow yourself up. Go on,
and blast yourself away. It’s okay, just go ahead. The string of
the biwa of Moonshadow Bridge . . .”
He clearly recalled those orders his grandfather had called
out.
“The enemy ships are filling the sea off Shinagawa. The capital’s
been completely surrounded!”
Suddenly Masahiko’s eyes filled with tears. Now he understood
the meaning of the enemy his grandfather had been
CHAPTER 3
192
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
talking about. And that one string that had never been
sounded—it signified all that had held his grandfather connected
to the world that had been taken from him.
“Won’t you look after the biwa?”
One hot summer day when his mother was away from the
house Masahiko had been watching his grandfather, who
seemed to be in an unusually carefree mood as he tended his
collection of potted trees. Watching him, Masahiko got the
urge to try and tune the old biwa. He brought it out to the
porch and tried plucking on it, in the same way one would play
on a guitar. His grandfather stood up and turned around.
“That’s not a bad sound.”
With his pruning shears still in his left hand his grandfather
squinted his eyes.
“Oh come on, it’s no good.”
“Beginners can’t expect great sounds at the start.”
“It’s the air here. It ruins the condition of the strings.”
He had spoken half in joke. The sound he’d made could
hardly be called musical.
“You think so too?”
Judging from the serious response, Masahiko got the feeling
that his grandfather had taken his vague feelings to
heart.
“Well you’re probably right. It’s partly because I don’t know
how to finger it, but also somehow the noises of the city twine
around the strings like dust.”
“Right. I feel it in the pores of my skin even. It’s hard to
breathe. It’s no good.”
“Would it help if I tried changing the strings?”
“You could try changing them, but the quality of the strings
these days has really gone down. It’s the silk strings of silkworms.
Both the silkworms and the mulberry leaves, they
don’t grow well any more.”
193
As his grandfather was speaking the thin string that
Masahiko had been touching suddenly broke and fell without
even a sound.
“Ah, it’s broken.”
“. . . broken, is it? Well it’s been there for so long no wonder
it’s snapped now. I wouldn’t worry about it. They have them at
the music stores.”
“I’m sorry about it, Grandfather.”
“That’s all right. It was time to change it. Better to play it
with new strings. If the player calls out to the string and speaks
to it while playing, the string will start to sing. The string is
waiting to sing.”
“Sure, that’s what a really great player might say. But how can
a beginner expect something like that—speaking with the string?”
“You have to try it, with that spirit.”
“Well in any case, that’s a nice way to put it; the string is
waiting to sing.”
“Those aren’t my words. A master back in the old days used
to say that.”
“When you say the ‘old days,’ you mean the days in Amazoko?”
“Right. There was a great player who used to come over
Moonshadow Bridge and stay in town for a month or so. That’s
the one who said it.”
“Was it a man?”
“He was a blind man.”
“A person who can’t see must be able to exist in the midst of
sound.”
“I imagine a blind person’s world of sound must be completely
different from that of people who can see. That great
player, when he crossed over Moonshadow Bridge and announced
his greetings to the village, first he played the climax
to the Tale of the Heike.”
CHAPTER 3
194
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“Really? He must have been quite a player.”
“Well in those days the level of not only the players, but also
of the listeners too was high. Even though they didn’t go to
school they remembered and recited the Tale of the Heike.”
“Was Amazoko that kind of village?”
“It certainly was. Most people could hear things very far
away. Even though the sounds of that master player were gentle,
people could hear it from far off. Why, for Mizumaro-san,
people would drop their hoes and axes and come running to
greet him. They said you had to be quick in going to make your
greetings.”
“You mean the villagers went to greet him?”
“Well, since he was blind they didn’t want him to fall into
the ravine, did they? And then too, going quickly also meant
stopping work and getting to listen.
“Part of the attraction of the biwa is that it’s accompanied by
story telling.
“The stories were incredible. You couldn’t tell whether it
was the sound of the mountains or the sound of the winds that
was speaking.”
“Did you learn them from Mizumaro-san?”
Talking like this seemed to cause him pain. His grandfather’s
right hand was part of an artificial limb. His arm had
been blown off from the elbow in the Okinawa battle.
“Well, you could say I learned them, but . . .”
His grandfather thrust his false arm in front of his body
again and stared at it. Masahiko looked away. The material of
the hand had been made to approximate the look of human
skin, yet somehow it looked more garish than the skin of a real
hand.
“If you touch those strings, my fingers will be moving together
with them. The tips of my missing fingers will be touching
the strings.”
195
“Missing fingers—touching the strings?”
“That’s what I said. My fingers will be touching them.”
Masahiko looked carefully at the yellow skin of the artificial
hand.
“I’ve liked the sound of strings from way back. Especially the
biwa.”
The grandfather broke into a faint but peaceful smile.
“I’m going to leave this biwa to you. You want to give it a
try?”
These had been his words at the time.
Gradually he had started into the story of how at the time
he had left the village, for the sake of being able to take a keepsake
of his ancestors he had ordered a big mulberry tree cut
down and had an expert biwa maker from Hakata build him an
instrument from it. The maker told him that he’d never seen
such fine wood for a biwa and that he probably would never
see such wood again.
“The mulberry will be happy if you play it. It’s the only
thing left from Amazoko now.”
His tone of voice changed and he turned around. His expression
was hard to see in the back lighting.
So it seemed that this biwa was his only physical reminder
left from Amazoko. The last thing his grandfather had spoken
of was “the sound of the string.” Hadn’t old Chiyomatsu-san
spoken of that sound of strings as the “pathway of dreams”?
The villagers all remembered well how Oai-san in her older
days had delivered babies one after another. And in their
dreams, it seemed, they still met from time to time. And the
story of Nazuna had come down as a legend.
If his mother Machiko were to hear such tales, what would
she think? No doubt they would represent to her just the sort
of rural ignorance she disliked so much. In her wish to dissociate
herself from this sort of world she had made a point of
CHAPTER 3
196
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
associating with people of “dignified standing.” Her involvement
in the fashionable Mission School class reunion had
helped her to polish the social credentials on which she prided
herself. She had fallen in love with Kiyohiko years ago when
he was young, but even now she still thought of his countryside
past and his grandfather as a drawback. She pointed with
particular pride to her retired father’s career in the diplomatic
service. At one time he had been sent to investigate a rubber
plantation in Malaysia. It was there, at her father’s place during
her university summer vacation, that they had met.
Even when his mother was entertaining guests Masahito
had made no attempt to hide his rural dialect. At one such
time Machiko had said to her women friends, “His dialect
comes from the Kumaso, an ancient tribe in Kyushu. His lineage
goes way back. As for myself, when I was young I traveled
around the world with my father to foreign countries. When I
first heard the coarse dialect of those natives I had trouble understanding
what he was saying.”
Masahiko had been in his second year of junior high school.
He could remember how his ears flushed with blood. And even
his mild-mannered father Kiyohiko hadn’t been able to ignore
such words from his wife. What Masahiko’s mother had said at
that time—things he couldn’t talk about to anyone—had festered
in his heart like poison. Words like “those natives”—whether
they had been applied just to his grandfather’s former hometown
or to any other place—could only be considered insulting.
If his mother Machiko were to learn that his father’s ancestry
included people like Nazuna—a woman who had taken in a
baby that had been brought to her by the guardian god of the
village—a god who could take on the form of a snake—and if
she had known that the family still had associations with the
people from the village at the bottom of the lake, she would
surely have shuddered in disgust.
197
Masahiko felt as if now, twenty-three years after his birth,
he had become like Kappei the crab in Oshizu’s dream—the
dream she had told to the people at the crematory. The outer
covering of his feelings was like the shell of a crab that had
been split all the way from the bridge of its nose and eyes to
the tips of its claws and then shed. He felt as if he were standing
defenseless in the warm bed of a river, moving about with
his body and soul exposed, softer even than when he was an
infant, feeling his finger playing about in the water unconsciously.
n
Unexpectedly feeling as if he were about to break into tears,
Masahiko opened his eyes wide and stared off into the darkness
inquiringly. He’d been feeling that way since the night before.
He found himself awake, sitting up in his futon bedding. In
waking, the cat that had been sleeping by his feet and now
looked as if it had been pushed away stared blankly at
Masahiko and then came up to the hem of the blanket and
curled itself up. Probably it was one of the temple’s cats. Even
when it came close it seemed to check for danger before moving
in. It was said that the day before, when the young wife
came into the room with the vacuum cleaner, this cat had
glanced at the nozzle and jumped up with a yell and then
jumped again a full two yards to the side. Last night when she
had spoken of how that cat didn’t get along with her—and especially
with the vacuum cleaner—it had sent the whole family
into laughter.
Now he had already stayed two nights at the temple. He had
a feeling he might be staying there a while longer. Last night
after he returned from the cremation place the family at the
temple had urged him repeatedly to stay with them.
CHAPTER 3
198
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“How fortunate your timing was. The guest room is empty
now. Most of the wood for this room came from your family’s
mountains. We take good care of it and whenever we have a
big funeral and priests come from distant temples to assist
they always praise this room. It’s done in a plain fashion, yet
they always say that places built solidly in the old style make
for better dreams.
“Until now no one from the old Silk Estate has stayed here
and so now that you’ve come back at long last, everyone in the
house is delighted.”
Before the elder priest had finished speaking his wife,
seated by his side and nodding as she listened, raised her head.
“You know, if no one lives in a house it soon goes to rot and
ruin. It’s strange, but it’s true. And now, thanks to having a
young person here, the room has become young again too.”
Checking to see if her way of speaking had been appropriate
or not, she glanced at her husband.
“Isn’t that right? The guest room must be pleased at having
a young person stay in it.”
“And I’ve been giving it a good cleaning, as well.”
The young wife added this from behind. Her voice had a
smoothness that was completely changed from the way it had
sounded the day before at the funeral. He had felt there was
no reason to refuse their offer.
Such strange, unimaginable things were continuing to happen.
He’d come to this town, along with his biwa and the old
sleeping bag from his school mountain club days, just planning
to take care of his grandfather’s bones and then either find a
cheap inn or, if it was still warm enough, to sleep out in the
open.
Since his grandfather’s death he’d been feeling an urge to
get moving. He had been hoping to come up with something
to bring his life and music together but he kept running up
199
against a conflict that kept them apart. He’d tried his hand at
music theory, but every time he tried that route it seemed it
didn’t lead to good music. It seemed that the sound he was really
searching for would have to come from some other place.
Since his grandfather died, the colors he saw wherever he
looked as he walked about the city—not only in the buildings
but also in the advertisements and in people’s clothes and
even in the books in the bookshops—had seemed far too glaring.
It was as if paintbrushes loaded with gaudy colors were
waiting on the sides of the street, ready to paint everyone who
passed by in a jumble of color.
Masahiko had the feeling that his eardrums must be especially
weak. The way the sounds of the city just poured in
through the pores of his body seemed to indicate that there
was some problem with his ears. Once when the election-time
trucks that blared out their amplified appeals in ear-splitting
barrages came around he had even sought escape in an amusement
park. Waiting under a trellis of wisteria until the assault
from the loudspeakers passed he thought he heard, behind
him, the clear tone of a young child. He turned around to look
and saw three or four clumps of wisteria blossoms hanging
down, but there was no person in sight. At the time, he’d
thought it must have been a lone child singing, unaware that
this world was falling apart. Even with my damaged ears—he’d
thought—I heard it. Was it just an auditory hallucination? Even
if that were so, it seemed that the rebirth of that voice was essential
to the existence of people’s songs.
Thinking about this as he rode the trains and gazed at the
expressions in the eyes of the young people and heard them
laughing raucously he felt, with a sense of anxiety, as if his
eardrums were being pulled from his inner ear and trampled
beneath people’s shoes. When he heard the homogenized pronunciations
of people of his generation it seemed as if they
CHAPTER 3
200
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
were creating reproductions of the people around them and
talking to them in order to hide and protect their real selves
from being destroyed. It seems I’m not the only one feeling
this anxiety. It’s as if, amidst all the virtual reality we’re living
in, and by treating everything as if it’s part of a sort of pseudoexistence,
we’re trying to protect ourselves from being destroyed.
The other day I saw a girl who looked like she was hiding the
same sort of things that I was. She was sitting in the train,
across from me, with her eyes cast downward and her legs held
together and she didn’t look up even once. On her lap was a
small bluish-colored handbag with an elephant embroidered
on it. The train was swaying and each time the handbag
started to slip down she grabbed the elephant and pulled it
back up onto her lap. Since it was an elephant it looked as if it
should be very heavy—yet the girl had slender arms that stuck
out from her white short-sleeved blouse. For how many years
had this girl been taking care of this elephant on her handbag?
At night, did two people sleep inside that bag? If she had an
unavoidable errand and had to take it out into the city it could
pose a big problem. The city was filled with things that frightened
elephants.
The girl showed no other response at all, other than caring
for her elephant. Her facial color looked a bit greenish. Could
she have been a tree spirit? In the old days this area was said
to have been a part of the Musashino Plain, so could it be that
the spirits of its ancient trees still rose up and wandered about
amidst the darkness around the land beneath the elevated railways—and
got onto the trains?
Not reacting even in the slightest to her surroundings, and
appearing thoroughly buried within the deep cave of herself,
she seemed far removed from the world of humans. But then,
that couldn’t have been so—what made me think a thing like
201
that? Perhaps in that bag with the elephant she had a ticket to
the concert of some bleached-hair singer. If she were in the
light of the blue and pink lasers of a concert, probably she
would have gotten up immediately and started dancing and
running about. That elephant on her handbag must have been
a pet that she took for walks. And while I was thinking about
this she looked up, as if she’d been scared by something.
Masahiko was flustered. Perhaps she took me for some sort
of kidnapper. And if I look deep enough into my soul can I really
say I wasn’t thinking such things? I must be really strange.
She’s just an ordinary girl with nothing special about her.
Probably this girl, like everyone else, is making a copy of herself
for her own protection and leading this copy around the
city. They’re sealing themselves off from the true selves they’d
had from the oldest of times.
I turned my eyes away from the elephant, glanced down at
her navy blue sneakers and then looked over at a businessman.
It seemed as if I were being silently blamed by another being
who was her true self. For just an instant our eyes met. Hers
was the look of a wild beast surprised by something. She got
up as if her whole body movement were expressing her surprise
and then quickly she got off the train. I ended up riding
three stations past my stop.
That morning the mood at the breakfast table had been
worse than usual. It was the first week after his grandfather’s
death had passed and his father Kiyohiko was still taking time
off from work.
“Grandfather’s real wish was to return to his home in the
country.”
“That’s not the impression I got.”
Kiyohiko had answered his wife vaguely, opening the newspaper
that he hadn’t been able read owing to all the confusion
of the week following the funeral.
CHAPTER 3
202
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
“With all those country folks here, that was quite some local
talk we were treated to.” There really hadn’t been many of
Masahito’s relatives present at the funeral, yet she had made a
point of referring to them. Kiyohiko made no reply. There was
just the dry sound of the turning of the pages of his newspaper.
“‘Moonshadow Bridge, Moonshadow Bridge,’—that’s what
he said just before he died, according to the nurses. It was like
a line from some play, it seems.”
The sound of turning pages continued for a while.
“Was it really such a special place, as he claimed?”
“Well, I . . .”
“You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
“I couldn’t very well have been there, could I? It was flooded
by the dam.”
“So it’s at the bottom of the dam? Well anyway, it doesn’t
matter much.”
“Then don’t ask about things that don’t matter.”
“When you talk that way you sound just like Grandfather.”
Masahiko’s father put down the newspaper and tried to light
the cigarette lighter. It didn’t catch and an empty sound hung
in the air.
Whenever his mother Machiko said to Kiyohiko things like
“those country people” or “you sound just like Grandfather,”
her comments always carried an extra edge of meaning. It
might have been that Kiyohiko had been getting home from
work late at night, or that her pride had been hurt at an alumnae
group meeting, or such. Machiko would often say such
things as, “Alumnae meetings are such a bother. I’m not going
to any more of them.”
The rest of the family would show no reaction. But when
she said, “I’m not going any more” it really meant “I guess I’ll
go and see.” When she got home, Machiko would bring up a
classmate’s name and without fail mention something like,
“Her husband was posted overseas for a long time so she wears
203
all sorts of different things. She had on a necklace that looked
rather different from what most Japanese would wear.”
This was the kind of thing Machiko would talk about at breakfast
on Sundays. Kiyohiko would make a clatter with the butter
tray and take a big slab of butter and spread it on his toast.
Machiko would say, “You know that’s no good for your
health, don’t you?” and snatch up the butter dish without
flinching.
“What do you think I ended up wearing?”
“I thought you said you were going to buy some fancy brand
name thing for that meeting.”
“I bought it, but didn’t wear it.”
“Well what was the problem this time?”
“I wore something my sister gave me. It was authentic, tailored
in Paris.”
“Is that something that people can readily tell—that it’s genuine,
tailored in Paris?”
“Certainly they know. They all have an eye for that kind of
thing. These days you can see brand name clothes anywhere
you go. They’re all discounted. They have no value, it seems.
My sister’s was a Paris original, in a traditional style.”
“Paris, Paris, for God’s sake will you stop going on about
Paris. We’ve had enough of that already. You’re all just getting
taken in by vanity.”
“Well that’s rather rude of you, isn’t it? Right now I’m talking
about the culture of fashion.”
Masahiko’s elder brother, looking disgusted, broke into the
discussion.
“I’m going to have another cup of tea. I’ll get it myself. Don’t
you think we could have a little higher level of discussion
here? This is supposed to be our nice ‘morning conversation
time,’ isn’t it? Seems to me those ladies in their perfume are a
big pain it the ass.”
CHAPTER 3
204
MOONSHADOW BRIDGE
Masahiko, who hardly ever got involved in such conversations,
added,
“If you want to know the truth, that sort of woman depresses
me. Even over the telephone they reek of perfume.”
“Masahiko! You and your abnormal sensitivities again—
smelling perfume over the phone. I guess that must stem from
your grandfather’s blood.”
Masahiko had been thinking he shouldn’t get caught in the
discussion, but now it was too late. Looking at his mother gave
him a miserable feeling.
“Well now, isn’t this a fine morning. Why is it that I have to
be insulted by everyone? Do you have any idea just how humiliated
I’ve been on account of your grandfather?”
These infrequent “morning discussions” had come to no good.
Normally Kiyohiko was said to be quite proper in his manners,
but now he made a loud noise in putting down the newspaper
and then stood up, put on his jacket and went out. Machiko stood
rooted at the spot, slowly clearing the breakfast things, and then
after a while she spoke to the elder brother in an uneasy manner.
“I wonder where he’s gone. The mourning notices—we have
to write them you know. And your writing of Japanese characters
is so poor. It’s enough to drive me crazy.”
“Why is it you have to speak so badly about Grandfather?
You know Father doesn’t want to hear it.”
“But I’ve suffered so much humiliation. And from my own
family too. I have to hear them talk about how that Grandfather
was such a strange old man. And about how he was from
the Kumaso tribe down south.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to speak of him as coming from the
Yamatai, the original people of Japan?
“It certainly would not. Now just stop this foolishness.”
Then Machiko spoke to Masahiko as if she were recovering
her temper.
Comments
Post a Comment