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On a day filled with the calling of shrikes, it felt as if the sky
was deepening. Masahiko too noticed the hints of autumn
in the light of the sun. As the shadows grew softer on the
ground beneath the trees and grasses, one morning he noticed
a small patch of brilliant crimson amid the grasses. Coming
closer for a better look, he found it was the reddening leaves of
a plant whose name he didn’t know. The leaves were just over
an inch long, similar in shape to soybean pods and turning
shades of red.
Poking out here and there from the ground beside this plant
were bunches of three or four pale green stems capped with teagreen
crowns. Surprised to see such fresh sprouts coming up in
autumn, he observed them each morning and saw the stems
gaining height very quickly. Noticing that their green tips were
turning reddish, he finally realized that these were actually
flower buds. The stems stood out as solitary spikes until one
morning they burst out into crowns of brilliant crimson flowers.
While he was bent over looking at them, the elder priest’s
wife called out from the porch.
“They always amaze me. Even if I’ve forgotten them, the higan
lilies always come into bloom just at this time and help me
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5
prepare for the higan ceremonies at the autumn equinox. At
the peak of the season the pathway to the crematory is all lit
up with them.”
In his college days in the mountain climbing club Masahiko
had had a passing interest in alpine plants, but now in coming
here he realized that the villagers read the changes of the seasons
through the plants and that these occasions served as important
turning points in their lives. Looking at the world
afresh through their eyes he could see how the mountains
about him had taken on a completely different aspect—as if
from deep within the earth a workshop of the seasons had
brought about all these changes.
The wife, apparently annoyed at the cat entering Masahiko’s
room, busied herself with chasing it away. She seemed relieved
to have it out of sight for the day. Masahiko could tell her
mood from her tone of voice.
“You know, we got some nice Castella cake from Nagasaki. I’ll
leave some here for you.”
Turning around and lowering her head she went on expressing
her thoughts.
“If you don’t eat it soon that cat will start licking it. That’s its
bad character.”
He thought it strange that she’d seemed unable to just tell
him not to let the cat in.
Off in the kitchen, the women who had come to help were
busily engaged in washing vegetables and chatting. It looked like
the preparations for the higan festival were getting under way.
That afternoon, Ohina brought in some wild matsutake and
shimeji mushrooms, as well as liquors made from silvervine
and wild strawberries. Although she said it was for the higan
offerings, it seemed she did it more in asking for memorial
prayers for Sayuri, who had no relatives. As if just in passing,
she looked into Masahiko’s room and called out a greeting in a
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low voice, saying she’d be waiting for him at the “appointed
event” for Omomo.
That evening when Masahiko was called into the living
room, Ohina’s offerings were placed right in the front and the
elder priest was in good spirits.
“Well, well, these certainly are magnificent first products of
the season. Such good full aromas. Masahiko-san, you can’t get
these kinds of things in the city, you know. And when it comes
to finding things like these, no one can beat that woman.”
“That’s certainly the truth—why the mushrooms just send
their smells straight to that woman. She always gets the best
pickings of matsutake.”
Her tone of voice lowering as she spoke, the elder priest’s
wife picked up the mushrooms, leaving some decaying leaves
stuck to her fingertips. As the family handled the mushrooms
they considered the various ways they might cook them. Finally
they decided that roasting them on a grill would be best
and so they prepared to make a fire under the big hibachi grill.
“It feels like we’re getting ready to do the first tea ceremony
of the year.”
Tucking up the sleeves of his robes, Karehito called out to
his wife.
“I’ll take care of getting the straw and getting the fire going,
but would you wipe off the hibachi for me?”
Masahiko too was asked to join in.
“Shall we do the cooking out there in the garden? I’d really
prefer using this year’s straw, but with the rain and wind recently
most of the rice has been knocked down and we’re late
in getting straw. This here is last year’s.”
Saying this, he pulled out some straw bundles from the back
of the shed, carried them to the garden and began lighting a fire.
“What’s the difference between last year’s straw and this
year’s?”
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“Well, their smells and colors are different.”
But this explanation hardly allowed Masahiko to distinguish
them on his own.
“For cooking on a hearth or a hibachi, straw gives you the
best ashes. The fire lasts better too.”
He lit a fire, but it seemed to take a surprisingly long time to
burn a bundle of straw down to coals. It burned and burned,
yet still it took a long time to build up a small amount of ash.
A bundle would catch on fire in a burst of flames and then become
a blackened bunch of fibers. Finally the flames reached
the embers of the bundle without going out and turned them
into white coals. Seeing straw burning like this for the first
time, it struck Masahiko that this changing of plants into ashes
gave him a feeling of cleanness.
Masahiko thought back on the greenish stalks that had
been thrashed about so much by the wind and rains in the
rice fields on the way back from Sayuri’s funeral. If he held a
stalk of the rice in his hand it seemed such an abundance of
growth. If he burned it, it seemed to change into such a small
thing.
“Let’s hold off on the old straw. This will give us a good base.
Let’s add some ashes from the new straw on top now.”
Masahiko could readily understand the excitement in getting
out the hibachi, but it wasn’t until he saw the colors of the
coals from the new straw that he understood the young priest’s
words, said in joking, about a “first tea ceremony of the year.”
The pungent fragrance that rose from the matsutake mushrooms
roasting directly over the fire put the whole temple
household in festive spirits.
Ohina’s wild mountain liquor also helped put Masahiko’s
body—unaccustomed as it was to the powers of alcohol—in a
blissful state, leaving his spirits floating about in pleasant inebriation.
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“This is some fine liquor we’ve got here. They tell us we’re
not allowed to take fine liquor through the mountain gate of a
temple, but doesn’t the liquor get sweeter when it passes
through the gate? Isn’t that right Karehito—no, I mean
Masahiko-san?”
As he spoke, the elder priest’s face showed signs of his drinking.
His wife was starting to get annoyed at the proceedings.
“There you go talking about the same old things again. Can’t
you move on to something else?”
“Now what d’you mean?—why, these are the highest sorts of
matters we’re discussing, and certainly the young people
ought to know about these things too—isn’t that right,
Masahito?”
Of late, on a number of occasions the elderly priest had mixed
up the names Masahiko and Masahito. His wife apologized.
“I’m sorry. He knew your grandfather. He often mixes up
the two of you.”
Masahiko felt perched on the borders of illusion.
“You can call me Masahito too. Masahito used to say the
liquor from the mulberries of the old estate was sweet too.”
“Oh, so you know about that too. The mulberry liquor was
sweet . . . Well . . .”
Ignoring her husband, whose body was now swaying back
and forth, she asked Masahiko,
“I suppose you’ll be going to see Omomo on that day?”
“I’ll be going. It’s on the night of the higan festival.”
Masahiko replied without hesitation and the elder priest
caught his words.
“Omomo? Why, that girl has a wild character, I tell you.”
“Oh hold your tongue, will you? She’s going to be succeeding
to Sayuri’s responsibilities.”
“So what’s all this business about a succession? I’m telling
you, you shouldn’t go.”
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“How can you talk like that now? This whole feast we’re having
here—the matsutake, the liquor, and all—Ohina brought all
these things to us.”
“Oh, so this is Ohina’s liquor, is it? Well, no wonder it packs
such a punch.” Karehito shook with laughter.
When Ohina had finished paying her respects to Amida
Buddha on the day of the equinox she set off into the mountains
before anyone else. Seeing her off, Karehito pulled out a
flashlight from the sleeves of his black robe.
“I just changed the batteries. The moon will probably be out,
but in the mountains it gets pretty dark under foot so you’d
better do your climbing while it’s still light.”
His wife brought out a heavy handbag wrapped in a cloth.
“This is for everyone up on the mountain. It’s a little something
to eat when you’re making your devotions.”
“Actually, I’d like to go up there myself and see what’s going
on. It seems something new is going to happen.”
In saying this, Karehito moved closer to Masahiko and continued
in a low voice, as if whispering.
“To tell the truth, I heard Ohina’s prayer songs that time of
the drought—though I didn’t let my parents know. When my
father found out he turned pale. I’m afraid our chanting the
sutras won’t compete with it.”
Every time he walked along the paths Masahiko found himself
immersed in the fragrances of the mountains. He felt himself
harmonizing with everything around him. The temple was
filled with the activities of Buddhism and so when the reciting
of the sutras began he would strap his biwa on his back and
head for the banks of the lake by the dam. He didn’t want to
disturb the sutra recitations, and also he wanted to hear his
own sounds purely. On the top of the mountain, however, he
felt a painful awareness of the gap that remained between the
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powerful kinds of sounds he imagined in his thoughts and the
actual sounds that came out when he plucked with the plectrum
on the strings of the biwa. He realized that the strings
were still not singing with their own voices.
Sometimes as he walked along the mountain paths he met
people from the village. Some would call out greetings by making
a gesture of playing an imaginary biwa and asking him,
“How’s the practicing going?” It made him feel self-conscious.
Thinking over such things he arrived at his usual spot.
He looked around, seeking hints of the events to come that
night. The roof and walls of the grass hut—the same one he’d
helped the two women build that first day according to their
instructions—had been fixed up. As the days had passed its
thatched roof and reed walls had dried out and so now they
had been completely replaced. It was clear that Ohina and
Omomo had been preparing things for the events to take place
that night. “At that place we were before,” was all that Ohina
had said.
He came to a stop. A fragrant smell floated in the air. Looking
closely at the space between the walls and roof he noticed
a faint, hazy smoke drifting about. He guessed Ohina or
Omomo must be inside. It was unlikely that any one else
would have repaired the hut and been inside at this time. The
door of the hut was closed. He reversed his steps and backed
away quietly. It seemed that this area in front of him was not
a space he should intrude upon.
Judging from the burning incense he supposed they must be
saying prayers. He decided to conceal himself in a thicket not
too far away where he could keep the hut in sight. The colors
of small flower petals danced about before his eyes. The
thicket was filled with bush clover. The colors of the flowers
were considerably brighter than those that grew around the
temple. They grew in bunches here and there, composed of
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branches and flowers that were remarkably longer and larger,
and whose energies were delicately entwined. Creeping forward
and looking at the small flowers scattered about,
Masahiko felt strangely as if he’d been changed into a fox. The
sun had already begun to settle into the tops of the mountains.
The sky was tinged with the first shades of autumn madders.
Faint ripples colored by the sky spread across the surface of
the water around the dam, gradually changing to a golden hue
as if they held flames within. He focused his eyes on what lay
below the water’s surface. The shadows of fish flitted about
like the scattering of willow leaves. While watching these fish
shadows Masahiko saw a clear reflection in the water of his
dream from the night he spent in the grass hut.
He saw an old tree silently going up in flames. At first there
was an old house burning somewhere off in the countryside,
but that scene shifted into the background and a tree with
blackened leaves dancing about above the flames came into focus.
The sight of the burning tree conveyed a deep solemnity.
Then, by the side of the tree, a young girl appeared. Her back
was turned toward him. In his dream it had seemed to
Masahiko that the girl and the tree engulfed in flames were
thoroughly bound together. An elderly man approached and
as his white-haired topknot was blown about by the fire he
spoke repeatedly to the girl and pulled her by the hand. The
girl resisted strongly and before long broke away, turning
around as she went. Then she slipped beneath a flame-colored
stand of trees and disappeared into the river plain amidst the
faint light of the water, surrounded in darkness. As she was
moving away from the burning tree a silverish, celadon-blue
obi hung down from her back.
He would never forget his impressions of that obi—it seemed
to him that it was identical to the one that had risen from the
water while wrapped around Sayuri’s body. And now he’d
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heard that Omomo was going to wear this same one tonight.
These thoughts made his heart beat restlessly. And on that day
she’d risen from the bottom of the lake through the weeds and
algae when the sun went behind the clouds the wet obi had
given off a faint light. And even to Masahiko, who knew nothing
at all about fabric, the sight had suggested that the obi
must somehow have a special significance and history behind
it. Somehow he had also come to understand the apprehensive
feelings of the head priest’s wife regarding the obi.
He had no way of knowing whether the obi of the girl in his
dream and the one Sayuri had been wearing were truly the
same or not. Certainly there was something poignant about
the thought of people returning in dreams to a village that had
sunken to the bottom of a lake. Nevertheless, he felt unable to
tell Ohina and Omomo or the family at the temple about his
strange dream. In the depths of that turbid water around the
dam that single aged tree was burning silently. Who could that
girl he’d seen from behind have been?
Could it be that my dream too has been sealed off at the bottom
of the lake? If he spoke about this sort of thing to Kappei,
no doubt Kappei would pat him on the back and say, “Well that
just goes to show that you’re one of us Amazoko folks after all,
doesn’t it.” And so he felt he couldn’t talk about this to Kappei
either.
Something white passed by at the extremities of his vision.
Shifting his gaze he realized that it was Omomo, standing on
the shore not very far from him. She had a pure white cloth
wrapped about her breasts, leaving her shoulders exposed. She
was about to enter the water. Masahiko watched the reflected
figure of her body. The thickets of bush clover provided sufficient
cover to keep him hidden from sight. Ohina, standing by
the banks of the lake, was gracefully putting on a white robe.
Neither of the women was aware of Masahiko’s approach.
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Even though he felt he shouldn’t be watching, the expressions
on the faces of the two women were visible amidst the
rows of thin stems and small flowers. It made a striking scene.
The faces of both Omomo and Ohina were entirely different
from those of any women he’d ever seen before. Catching a
glimpse of the expression on the women opening their eyes
slowly, Masahiko felt a shock that struck him directly in the
middle of his forehead. Or perhaps it would be more accurate
to say that the impression struck him gradually, over time and
afterwards.
The expression he saw on the two women possessed a modesty
he had never before encountered on a human face. With
her long hair trailing down behind, Omomo’s face appeared a
bit gaunt but it looked like a face that, after having lived in this
world, had found its way to a place of exalted spirits. She
looked serious, but opened her eyes halfway, as if in a dream,
and swayed slightly as she stood for a while in the water. Then
she advanced until the water reached her knees. Masahiko
stood perfectly still, imagining she must be performing a
Shinto misogi purification rite.
Then Omomo released her arms, which had been folded
over her breasts and, with a somewhat languorous expression,
raised them above her shoulders. It all seemed like part of a
very slow dance. Her long hair that had been combed in back
now trailed down in front of her face. Then she bent over and,
as if brushing the water with her fingertips, began washing her
hair. Captivated, Masahiko watched the young woman wash
her hair in the water of the lake. Omomo looked utterly different
from the country girl dressed in a red T-shirt he’d seen
in this same place on the sixteenth day of O-bon.
In the distance by the edge of the lake three white cranes
were dancing about. Omomo rinsed her hair carefully, repeating
the motions over and over again. When she was finished
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she held up her wet hair in one hand and turned toward her
mother. She covered her body in a dry white cloth that Ohina
handed her and then slipped off the wet white cloth beneath
to let it fall into the water. Ohina moved around behind her
daughter, brought out a wooden comb and began combing her
hair.
Ohina looked like a lady in waiting. Her face expressed both
sadness and grief, yet it differed so completely from what was
typical of the times that it gave the impression the women
were taking part in an ancient ceremony. It seemed to
Masahiko that Ohina, standing in the evening on the bank of
the lake, might be an intermediary for the gods.
n
Masahiko felt as if he had slipped back into the times of long
ago and that his thoughts, which had been so bound up, had
unraveled and expanded. Thinking about it later, he imagined
that this might have been brought on by seeing Ohina with the
wooden comb in her mouth. Certainly she had been carrying
out a ritual, and the comb may have been a ceremonial object
that signaled its beginning.
Standing in the water behind her daughter after finishing
the combing, with one hand Ohina grasped Omomo’s hair and
with the other she placed the comb in her mouth. The comb
was shaped like a three-day moon. Then, for some reason,
slowly she turned toward Masahiko’s direction. Since he was
well hidden behind the clumps of bush clover there was no
reason to suspect he could be seen, yet for a moment he was
startled. Although Masahiko imagined he was out of Ohina’s
line of sight, and although the expression on her face holding
the comb in her mouth seemed serene and gentle, somehow it
created a sense of apprehension. Soon Ohina turned back in
the direction of her daughter. Then she pulled a small towel
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from the front of her kimono, unfolded it and began drying
Omomo’s wet hair, continuing until she was satisfied that it
was mostly dry.
In watching Ohina’s actions he had wondered why she was
carrying a string of long grasses hanging from the obi at her
waist. But when she finished drying Omomo’s hair and put the
towel back into the front of her kimono she pulled the long
grasses from her obi and set them in the water to soak. Then
she gathered up the grasses with both hands, twined them
around Omomo’s head and after checking for size she tied
them together from behind as if making a headband.
Even though he was watching the space between the white
robes of Ohina and Omomo from a distance he could see that
Omomo’s hair had dried considerably and it was now waving
softly. Ohina took the comb she had been holding in her
mouth and, urging her daughter along, passed it to Omomo
over her shoulder. Omomo nodded slightly and held the
wooden comb above her head. She looked at it for a moment,
and then with her other hand she groped about for the grass
hair band. When she located it she gazed into the water.
Masahiko could tell that she was looking at herself in the mirror
of the water. As her head moved slightly, the colors of the
water played upon the thin grass hair band she was holding
back with her finger. The women were exchanging some brief
words but he couldn’t make them out.
Omomo’s graceful arm moved slowly and, for added effect,
she placed the wooden comb in the crown of her hair, entwined
with the band of grasses. Then with her other arm she took the
hair that was trailing down along her back and pulled it around
to her front. She combed out her hair as if to finish the work her
mother had been doing for her. In watching Omomo holding
her hair and twisting her body as she combed herself, Masahiko
was interested in the way Ohina’s body also took on a similar
motion, bending back slightly and moving both of her hands. It
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seemed there was an invisible mirror between the two women
that was projecting—from the regions beyond—the image of a
woman from a distant age as she would see herself in the future.
Again the two women spoke. Omomo held the comb in her
mouth in the manner her mother had done and then she took
the white cloth wrapped about her breasts, lifted it to the
height of her shoulders, and turned about, facing his way. Her
face bore a firm, quiet expression. She looked like a person resolving
faintly into sight, appearing from a distant inaccessible
time. Masahiko felt a strange feeling, difficult to describe,
welling up inside. A pungent smell—redolent of what seemed
like the scent of mosses and plants from the bottom of the
lake—penetrated his body.
It appeared that the hair washing ceremony had come to an
end. Ohina walked ahead and they climbed the embankment
above the shore of the lake. For a while the two women gazed
over the lake at the darkening sky. They both brought their
palms together formally and, as if trying to confirm something,
joined in a long prayer. Then slowly they walked to the
grass hut and went inside.
Masahiko had been riveted in place amidst the stand of
bush clover. Never before had he seen a woman take such care
in combing and caring for her hair. Perhaps he’d seen such a
wooden comb in an old photo in some magazine, but this was
certainly the first time he had ever seen a woman actually
holding one in her hands and using it. He had often seen his
mother Machiko at her mirror working on her hair with an
electric dryer and comb. But he had never even imagined such
a sight as this—of a woman by a lakeside washing her long hair
and combing it with an old wooden comb. In Tokyo he had often
seen women with long hair, but never had he seen such an
impressive comb or hair.
Masahiko had come up to the Amazoko dam hoping to hear
Ohina sing, and with thoughts of creating a musical composition
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for Japanese instruments. The thought of being able to hear
singing at the ceremony for Omomo’s succession to Sayuri’s role
had inspired him to come, but he hadn’t imagined being able to
witness the Shinto purification rite of hair washing. He realized
that the matter of the hair told of a complex riddle of its own.
Omomo’s hair swayed back and forth about the back of her
white robe as Ohina handled it carefully. It seemed as if women
had been taking care of their hair like that for ages. Masahiko
was practically numbed by the swirl of incomprehensible
thoughts eddying about within his head, yet the feeling it left
him with was by no means unpleasant.
A wooden comb had been passed back and forth between the
toughened hands of the older woman and the rounded hands of
the younger one, almost like the shuttle of a loom. Omomo’s long
hair looked like the threads of a loom. It was as if the very source
of all that was Amazoko was being woven together by hand. The
movements of the women’s hands reminded him also of hands
plucking on a koto. He had no doubt that for these two women a
string had already begun to sound. It was a sound from a distant
world—but could it be that this same sound had also begun to reverberate
within himself as well? Such were the thoughts and
emotions that swept through Masahiko’s body and mind.
He felt as if the branches of bush clover, fully laden with
flowers, were swaying back and forth in front of him. Sensing
the presence of something he turned around and found
Kappei standing behind him. Kappei spoke in a somewhat
hushed voice.
“You’re early, aren’t you?”
Then he pointed to the hut.
“They must be here already.”
Nodding in assent to his own words Kappei came closer, taking
care how he stepped on the grass, and then he sat down beside
Masahiko.
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“What about Chiyomatsu and Oshizu; are they here too?”
Masahiko shook his head.
“I guess the two of us got here pretty early.”
Masahiko must have looked somewhat different from usual.
Kappei scrutinized the young man’s face carefully. Falling into
silence he took out a cigarette and lit a match. Masahiko had
started jotting down in a notebook some musical ideas that
were simmering in his imagination, but when he heard the
sound of Kappei’s hard dragging on the cigarette he quickly
shut the notebook. In writing, the fidgeting motion of his
hands seemed to express a sense of restless longing.
Compared to the wooden comb that Ohina and Omomo
held in their hands, here in this place his pen seemed shabby.
He understood this also from the way Kappei had sighed. With
moistened eyes, Kappei looked at the young man with deep
affection. Even so, Masahiko felt a sense of reserve toward
this older man. It made him hesitate to speak and he couldn’t
help feeling ashamed. Even if he hadn’t been writing music
Masahiko felt he was still just a schoolboy, whereas Kappei
knew so much more about the things of the real world. Even
apart from the fact that he had fallen over the edge at the dam
construction site, Kappei’s life had in no way been an ordinary
one. For Masahiko, who had for the most part led a pampered
life, it was hard to imagine the life of such a person—someone
who had lost his father in a flooded river and gone to work at
the age of fourteen or fifteen as a construction laborer to support
his mother and grandmother. And so this person might
on occasion stagger about at the edge of the world. And even
when telling of that time he got skewered by the iron rod this
bearded fellow had said it happened because of the beauty of
the moon.
On the night of the wake Kappei had muttered, “Sayuri-san,
you too were so beautiful in the O-bon moon.”
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Perhaps beautiful moonlit nights were dangerous for this
man. He was sitting on the grass with his legs crossed. When
he finished his cigarette he placed his hands on his thighs and
tugged restlessly on his trousers. Apparently feeling something
needed to be said, Kappei opened his mouth to speak first.
“You smell that incense?”
And he did in fact notice a fresh smell of incense.
“Ah . . . just a while ago . . .” Attempting to say something
about the hair washing ceremony, the words stuck in
Masahiko’s throat.
“A while ago—what about it?”
“Well, a while back the two of them came out from the hut
and were standing there in prayer.”
“Then I guess they must have started already.”
The two men listened and watched carefully. From within
the grass hut a low, chanting sort of voice became audible. It
was a gentle, quiet sound, similar to that of the rustling of grass.
Without stirring, the men listened to what was taking place.
Hearing the sound of footsteps on the fallen leaves, they
turned around and saw a group of the older people coming
through the bushes. Among them were Chiyomatsu, Oshizu,
and the elderly men and women Masahiko had seen at the
wake and the cremation ceremony. They seemed to be whispering
something among themselves, but when Kappei stood
up and signaled to them the expressions on their faces
changed immediately. They came to attention and proceeded
into the grassy area with measured steps, in the manner of entering
a place for a sacred ceremony.
Watching the way they walked as they filed in, Masahiko
was struck by a thought: That’s the way Noh players walk as
they cross the bridge that leads to the main stage. The steps of
the Noh have been passed down from old times and they must
be derived from the ways of walking through the grasses in the
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fields and mountains. The thought sent a quiver along his
back. Thinking of the dead bodies that used to be set out in the
mountains and fields, it seemed the steps of the Noh dance
must reflect the spirits of the dead. And even the sprits of the
dead—perhaps when they come back to this world they too
have to tiptoe carefully through the grasses and bush clover, as
if stepping over currents of flowing water. The steps of the old
people in the countryside are tempered by their passing over
the bridge of the unpredictable course of human life. This is
what shapes the way they walk. And in turn this has been
transformed into the embodiment of art.
As the shadows crept deeper into the folds of the mountains
and darkened the waters, the landscape took on a new aspect.
The leaves on the tree branches stirred up waves of light that
rippled through the encroaching darkness. The elders gazed
intently at the grass hut and then lined up along the edge of
the lake. Facing the water, they joined reverently in prayer,
swathed in the fading tones of the madder hues in the sky.
Struck with emotion, Masahiko looked beyond them and tried
to imagine what they must be seeing of the old village through
the eyes of their spirits. Then he tried to draw up an image of
the old household of his ancestors, the Silk Estate, and of the
Isara River that flowed close by.
“In my dreams what I see is always only Amazoko.”
The soft sounds of the villagers’ voices were like the bubbling
of water from a spring. One by one, their wrinkled faces
passed by Masahiko’s eyes, filling him with a sense of beauty
and kindness. He had the feeling that, had he looked at
Kappei, his eyes would have filled with tears.
Fortunately, the bearded man was standing together with
the elders, their heads all inclined toward the bottom of the
lake. He felt glad he had put away his notebook a while back.
If he were to take it out now it would also seem out of place.
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When the prayer was finished the door of the grass hut
opened almost immediately. Ohina, the first to emerge, made
a polite greeting.
“I want to express my deep appreciation to all of you for
making the effort to come up here. It is difficult to make such
a request, but your coming here is what Oai-sama fervently
wished for. Truly, I am grateful to you all.”
With these words Ohina ended her remarks and then, with
all the elders silent, she looked back and nodded two or three
times in confirmation.
“Omomo.”
At Ohina’s call Omomo emerged from the hut. Everyone’s
eyes strained in looking. Her white robe gathered the lingering
rays of light from the lake and sky. A sense of wildness radiated
from her entire body as she stood with her eyes cast
downward. The band of blue-tinted material wrapped about
her forehead made her appear even more striking. It seemed
that the band of grass she was wearing about her forehead a
while back must have been intended to ward off bad spirits.
Beneath the opening of her loose robe she wore a thin obi. It
was made of the same material as the band tied about her forehead.
Two of the older women remarked at the same time in low
voices, “She looks just like a princess from the age of the gods.”
“I ask your kind favor.”
And with these words, Omomo bowed deeply to the elders
who had come this evening as witnesses. Her freshly washed
hair streamed down over her shoulders and across her breasts.
Masahiko gazed at her figure intently. Never having been
alone with her, he had never had a chance to look at it carefully.
Also, the image of Omomo that stood out from the hairwashing
rite he’d come upon by chance was one of her being
among elderly people. His eyes caught on the obi tied at her
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back. Could this be the same one he had seen in his dream? It
was a shame he couldn’t have taken a photograph of the obi in
his dream so he could compare it, but it seemed that the obi
tied around her back was the same as the one on the young girl
beneath the flaming tree. Quickly, however, Masahiko pushed
this thought aside. This was no time to be sifting through the
back reaches of his dreams.
Ohina closed her eyes and continued her greeting. But more
than a greeting, her words sounded like those of an incantation.
“I would like you all to realize that this is the obi that Sayurisan
used to wear. It is the same obi that—through whatever history
it has passed—Sayuri’s mother wore wrapped about her
when she came here. All of you from Amazoko, you know the
story about the weeping cherry, the one at the bottom of
Utazaka Hill.”
All the elders closed their eyes too and nodded their heads
a number of times.
“Since the old times the cherry tree of Amazoko has looked
after people in their last days. The woman who wore this obi
made her way here from the Mimigawa River to this tree, and
this is where she left Sayuri. Oai-sama, who delivered the babies
of the village, brought up Sayuri and trained her as a
shrine maiden who could pray for rain in times of drought.
Worrying about the droughts to come after she was gone, Oaisama
asked Chiyomatsu-san and Oshizu-san to look after the
waterways of Amazoko. But, as you know, the river of Amazoko
was trapped by the dam along with the village, leaving us
so distressed.
“Now we return to Amazoko in our dreams so we can take
care of the waterways and the droughts. In order to prevent
the Amazoko we see in our dreams from dying out, Omomo
has received this obi and she is going to carry out the duties of
looking after our waters. Chiyomatsu-san has seen this clearly
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in his dreams, and Oshizu-san, Gensuke-san, and Osayo-san
have heard the announcement from his dreams and they are
witnesses.
“Omomo can’t perform Sayuri’s dances, but she can sing the
sacred songs. May the dreams of the people of Amazoko accompany
her. Drawing on our connections to the sources of
life, we ask that the wishes of this night may come to pass.”
Ohina stared intently at the surface of the water. Chiyomatsu
opened his eyes and took a step forward. Then he
took a deep breath and followed up on her greetings.
“Tonight we have an exceptionally fine moon.
“I’m someone who hardly ever remembers dreams, but in
one that I do remember I saw Amazoko on a moonlit night.
Omomo was standing at the edge of the Isara River, facing the
moon and singing. She was singing of how the rice plants were
all soaked in water and how sad it was that they had all withered
and died. It was an unusually beautiful song. So tonight
I’ve come here with the hope that I might once again be able
to hear her sing that song. In the old days it was said that deep
in the mountains far, far beyond these mountains, there’s an
enormous lake that no one has ever seen. No one has ever seen
that lake in the womb of the mountains. It seems that our
souls were born in the depths of that lake. And it also seems
the name of our village Amazoko had its origins there.”
n
Omomo’s body was swaying back and forth gently. She was
holding a rather long set of light red prayer beads hanging
from her hands. Two older women nodded to each other as if
exclaiming “Ah!” since this string of beads—beads that Sayuri
had used when she recited her prayers—was the very same
string of coral beads that had come from Oki no Miya. Omomo
fingered the beads, holding them to her breast as she chanted,
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and then she turned toward the elders to greet them. Ohina,
standing at the back of the room, signaled to Kappei with her
eyes. Then she pointed to the entrance of the straw hut.
Kappei nodded as if he understood what was going on. He
went to the entrance holding a carpet and spread it at the feet
of the elders. Then he smoothed out the carpet with his big
hands as if looking for sharp stones or twigs. Finally, he signaled
silently to the elders to sit there.
“How comfortable,” the elders commented politely. They sat
down quietly and once again gave their attention to Omomo
and Ohina in their white robes. Just then the wind gusted and
Omomo’s hair swayed to the side. With the sky not yet yielding
its last rays of light, the tips of her long hair fluttered gently,
as if expressing a sign of the coming twilight.
The first voice sounded.
On hearing it, the thought came to Masahiko of those sal
trees faintly lit up amidst the mountain dew. He had seen
those trees for the first time in this mountainous land. Their
trunks were smooth and golden, with flecks of red. Omomo’s
song conveyed the impression of those trees murmuring, off in
the distant mist.
In the moonrise
Of the autumn equinox
From Oki no Miya
Already your servant
Has come
Already your servant
Has come
Omomo looked out with half-opened eyes. With the prayer
beads hanging from the opening of one sleeve she raised them
slowly to her breast in a just-barely perceptible movement. Her
267
manner was entirely different from the flashy movements of
the singers on TV. Her voice and the motions of her body were
like the spirit of a tree, or of an object answering to a faint, distant
wind.
The elders sat up straight to welcome the arrival of the servants
of Oki no Miya.
Here at the
Meeting place
At the base
Of heaven
Welcome the new moon
Over the mountains
Come flowers
And pampas grass
The blue shell princess
From Oki no Miya
The god of the mountains
The master of the cave under heaven
The lord of the oceans
If you pass
Down the road
Of a thousand leagues
A thousand grasses
And vines too
Shall turn red
And become
Beautiful woven silk
Let us take
One stem of the
Thousand-year pampas grass
And make an offering
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Oshizu and Chiyomatsu’s eyes moistened as if they had already
entered the darkening surface of the water. Thinking
back on the story Chiyomatsu had just told about the lake in
the womb of the mountains, Masahiko tried to hold onto the
fragments of his grandfather’s words. Yes, he used to speak of
a lake of a “divine wedding.” Masahiko remembered his mother’s
voice, sounding casual to his ears, after she had put Masahito
into the mental hospital.
“The nurses talk about him, you know. They say Grandfather
often talks to himself. And he goes on about some sort of
‘honeymoon lake.’ I suppose his memories of his youth must
have been quite happy. It seems the nurses hear him talk
about how his old days were good—but then he says we ruined
his life and pushed him into the hospital. As he got older your
grandfather often talked about that honeymoon lake. He
must have spent some pretty romantic days there, don’t you
think? That lake, I wonder—which one do you suppose it was
he went to?”
Kiyohiko, his father, had answered in his usual expressionless
voice, “I didn’t hear anything about it, but it doesn’t matter,
does it? It didn’t hurt anyone, did it?”
“But I . . .” Machiko started to speak, but cut herself short
with an unnatural-sounding laugh. Masahiko remembered the
conversation well.
Masahiko now understood what his grandfather Masahito
had really meant by his words. Omomo had sung of “one stalk
of the thousand-year pampas grasses”; and in fact there really
was a place called “Susuki Bara,” meaning the “plain of pampas
grass.”
“Perhaps,” Grandfather had said, “it was the remains of the
mouth of a volcano. There was a plain called ‘Susuki Bara.’ The
old folks used to say that below it was Amazoko Lake, where
the goddess of Oki no Miya and the Lord of the Mountains
met. It was the lake of the divine wedding.”
269
His grandfather had told him these stories. The Isara and
Tamama Rivers flowed into the ocean, and where they met
amidst the currents of the sea was Oki no Miya. The old
people said that twice a year, at the spring and autumn
equinoxes, the goddess of the ocean palace and the god of
the mountains met and exchanged places. In the village of
Amazoko the people sent off the mountain god and received
the goddess from Oki no Miya. The two gods came from the
oceans and the mountains riding on dragon gods. According
to his grandfather, Amazoko was the meeting place for the
gods.
While Masahiko was listening to Omomo’s song, the words
of his grandfather, with their musical cadences, fell into context.
So that was what it was about, he thought. His grandfather
must have been trying to convey the spiritual world of his
lost village to his weak grandson whose ears had become damaged.
Thinking of it now, Grandfather must have been so overcome
by his sorrow that he was unable to move either forward
or backward. He had restrained himself with the strength of a
man of the countryside. And yet, in the end, the words had
just broken out.
“Go blow yourselves up, Japanese islands! Just go blow yourselves
to bits!”
His inner world had already been destroyed. In the car as he
was being taken to the mental hospital he had been completely
surrounded by other cars—going forward, going left, going
right and coming up from behind.
“We’re in the midst of an army of enemy tanks. We can’t escape.
All we can do is go on like this!”
The voice that Masahiko would never forget had been the
old man’s cry of desperation. The inner cosmos in which he
had been brought up, where people had lived in a world of
myth, now lay destroyed at the bottom of the lake and he reCHAPTER
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mained a lone survivor wandering in an unknown megalopolis.
He must have come to think of himself as some sort of unripe
rice plant that had been mowed down. He had seen it
while being led away by a family that regarded him as just a
demented old man. The Japanese islands had turned into a giant
conveyor belt carrying slabs of concrete, all covered with
trembling swarms of vehicles.
He must have imagined he was about to be devoured by the
ever-increasing horde of cars that so resembled a pack of rice
weevils. But it was his grandfather’s very last words following
that outburst that had sent Masahiko back carrying the urn of
cremated bones to the lake that now covered the old village.
“The string of the biwa of Moonshadow Bridge . . .”
And now that string, urged on by Omomo’s voice, had begun
to stir within Masahiko’s body like a small spring of water bubbling
up into the mist.
Then in a low voice Ohina began to sing, taking over for
Omomo. It felt as if the grasses and trees all about were waving
gently in the wind.
Yaa
Hôre Yaa
The five-colored clouds
Are in the shadow of the moon
Dimly visible
In the mirror of the water
The sound brought something back to mind. It was the night
he first met Ohina, after they had scattered the ashes and she
had sung. How he longed to hear that song again. Then Ohina
took a string of black beads into her hands.
271
Yaa
Hôre Yaa
The waters’ destination
Hold fast to the light
Of the distant world
In the darkness
Yaa
Hôre Yaa
Staying
Just one night
The feeling doesn’t end
It is also in
The shadows on the water
When he had heard the song the time before without understanding
the meaning of its words he had simply thought it
interesting to discover that such songs existed, but now he realized
that this song told of the wedding of the gods.
A half moon was rising over the water, its light reflected on
the surface. Omomo started to sway back and forth and the
tone of her song changed to a clear rising pitch. Masahiko felt
he was hearing the sound descending from the heavens.
Ho-o—
Ho-o—
Ho-o—
Repeating the call three times, she passed along the edge
of the lake in front of the people and then returned.
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Masahiko was unable to see her expression. He could tell that
Kappei was breathing with great care. As the final “Ho-o—”
slowly faded away it made him think of birds vanishing into
a starry sky.
Ohina’s voice swept low over the grasses behind her like the
traces of a breeze and trailed off into the spaces between the
trees. For a few moments there was silence. Then, in an unusual
voice that sounded like the striking of a plectrum, once
again she sang the sounds, “Ho-o— Ho-o—,” as if they were descending
from the heavens.
The thought came to him—this is the moment where a vanishing
mountain people’s spirit is transformed into art. And
then, as if gathering together all her voices and breathing them
into the sky, she began a powerful new verse—weaving it into
a tapestry of sound.
White heron
White heron
Night singing bird
Let the flowers fall
The name of the princess
Whose bed lies in the water
Is the Blue Shell Princess
Of the Palace of the Ocean
The name of the mountain god
Is Amazoko-no-unabara-no-mikoto
This one night’s stay
Amidst the thousand-year pampas grasses
Amidst the shadow of the moon
A stalk of grass
Sways and becomes
Countless flowers
273
Since ancient times
In Amazoko
The water of the lake
In the womb of the mountain
With its fragrant smell
When night comes
Keeps the dragons
Attending
The Blue Shell Princess
Pulling her long, shining
Blue hair
Till she becomes
The goddess of the mountains
The Isara River
Shows the way
Flow on
For the bounty
Of the oceans and the mountains
The landscape Masahiko’s grandfather had tried to describe
to him now began to appear. The lake that lay in the womb of
Amazoko Mountain was where the wedding of the gods took
place. The villagers paid their respects and offered songs so
that the night of the divine wedding would come to pass successfully.
On the eve of the autumn equinox the gods returned
peacefully to spend the night together at the unseen lake. If on
the following morning there was a faint whitish tint in the Isara
River, even when there had been no rain, this showed that
the wedding of the gods had taken place happily. And all along
the river, in the mountains and in the fields, the land became
moistened. And for another year fecundity would spread
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throughout the land, from the mountains to the distant sea.
And at the depths of the ocean the plants and all the fishes too
would thrive. Amazoko was the dwelling place of the gods who
enriched the mountains and the seas.
In his childhood Masahiko had thought of these tales of a
far-off forgotten mountain village as merely the fragments of
memories of an old man who had been separated from his
hometown. In those days the only one who had been there to
really listen to his grandfather’s stories was the big old gingko
tree. Now he had come to realize that in order to see into the
world that had been hidden in his grandfather’s mind it wasn’t
necessary to resort to ideas from ethnology or recently fashionable
ecological theories about saving the earth. All that was
needed was to share in the feelings of these elders right here;
these people who continued to return to Amazoko in their
dreams.
n
Masahiko felt something in Ohina and Omomo’s voices
awakening emotions that had been slumbering in the deepest
reaches of his heart. It was as if the strings that had been reverberating
within him were at last sounding together. In
Ohina and Omomo’s singing he could hear the kind of sounds
he’d been searching for—sounds like the verses of the imayou
songs of the distant past. He could hear a composition that had
not yet been performed for the outside world; one written for
hichiriki, shakuhachi, sasara, koto, otsutsumi drums, and other
stringed and percussion instruments. It was a piece that started
singing all by itself; at times bursting out with a heavily layered
feeling of life, and in some verses filled with the presence of an
autumn evening in the fields and mountains, faintly reverberating
with the soft sounds of insect voices calling to a distant
world.
275
For the first time he could feel himself walking down Utazaka,
passing by the weeping cherry tree and placing his hands on
the mulberry trees of the old Silk Estate. He looked up at the
sky, sharply framed by the ridgeline of the mountains.
Nearby was a large well, set off by a mossy stone wall with
fern leaves waving about, growing from its cracks. The villagers
called it the “Ikawa” well—but could it be that this well
gave birth to the wind also? In its dark water the face of a person
was reflected. The face of neither Ohina nor Omomo, it
had faint, carefree-looking eyebrows and its eyes, which
seemed partly cast downward, looked long, narrow and dim.
Its slightly grinning expression was inscrutable. Could this be
the face of his great-great-grandmother Nazuna who had taken
in and raised the child left by the Lord of the cave? It was said
that she had lived to over a hundred years in age; but would
she appear with a face like this? He felt himself trembling.
His grandfather had slipped away from the world of such
things and for a while he had tried to become a person of the
city. Compared to the villagers he had been somewhat more
cultured. Also, through the generations in which they had
used the name Mikihiko, the family had owned enough mountain
land to build a temple. And even if his grandfather’s estate
had been ruined, still he had established a home in Tokyo
and had sent his son to college and on to a position with a trading
firm, enabling him to make a decent living. Why then, had
he become so strange?
The things in his speech and behavior that people called
strange were limited to his military experience and to things
connected with the village of Amazoko. Perhaps if the difference
between two people’s experiences is too extreme, one
may become fearful of the things he or she can’t understand
about the other and end up saying the person is demented or
mentally ill.
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Masahiko felt the warm hand of his grandfather—the hand
he had lost in the war in Okinawa—being placed upon his
shoulder.
The words, “My lost fingers . . . they’re playing the biwa,”
sounded in his ears.
The leaves of the mulberry trees shone with a fresh light
and then became immersed in the thin fog. Why was it that
Masahiko, who would have been supposed to be ignorant
about plants, knew the shape and form of mulberry leaves,
and of their delicate, slender branches that swayed and
reached toward the sky? He found it fascinating to think how
the strings of his biwa had come from the insect-chewed leaves
of a mulberry and its body from the trunk of a mulberry. His
own biwa might not be quite like one in the Shoso-in Museum,
but to him the beauty of its shape was unrivalled. He couldn’t
help wondering what history lay behind the making of his
biwa, with its exotic shape.
He recalled hearing the talk of his friends at school, leaning
on one elbow and blowing smoke from their cigarettes as they
spoke, casually spouting off things like, “The modern era is an
age when meaning has become completely deconstructed.” He
wondered what kind of feelings about the realities of life lay hidden
behind those words. They seemed pale and insubstantial.
But here in the village of Amazoko, he saw people living in
pace with the growing of the trees, the flowing of the waters,
and the waxing and waning of the moon. Here he couldn’t say
that existence was meaningless. Even just thinking of a biwa,
couldn’t a person discover within its form a profound world of
order? The villagers see and understand such meaning and
bring it together. They look on existence as being one image of
the world placed in the midst of the entire creation; one in
which all animals and all people, themselves included, have to
play their roles. They can’t help but give it meaning.
277
He had understood this just from one moment of seeing the
fresh light shining from the leaves of the mulberry trees. In
this place, wasn’t meaning being reborn moment-by-moment,
like the plants growing on the bottom of the lake? At least, he
thought, it’s this way for me, and for people like Ohina, Omomo,
Kappei, and the elders, and the villagers who return to Amazoko
in their dreams.
He felt as if he had been entrusted with the responsibility of
carrying out the last will of this dying mountain region. He felt
himself trembling, as if he had been allowed to slip through a
gate into a secret region.
Clearly Masahiko was traveling together with the villagers
who were returning to their homeland in their dreams. Meaning
was connected without bounds. And the mulberry orchard
sparkled beneath the fog of Amazoko, appearing even more
finely engraved than the fine lines on the intricate paintings of
Balinese artists. The voice of his grandfather was floating
about through the mist and calling out, “the string of the biwa
of Moonshadow Bridge.” The people guiding Masahiko had appeared,
one after another.
From the time he saw the face of that woman from the old
days floating in the depths of the waters that flowed from the
well, a change had taken place in his imagination regarding the
kind of music he hoped to compose. Although he didn’t want
to become completely immersed in his feelings, he couldn’t
help seeing his own self sinking beneath the mirror of the water.
And it seemed there was yet one more of his selves, there
on the bank of the stream.
A net had been cast directly on his sense organs. No doubt
it was the richly colored voices of Ohina and Omomo that had
brought this about. The net had dredged up hidden strata
from the deepest layers of his soul and in one swoop it had
raised them up and set them free in the skies above the old village
that lay submerged at the bottom of the lake. At the time
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he became aware of himself walking down Utazaka Hill there
had been a finger softly pushing from behind on his back. Perhaps
it had been Omomo’s finger. He remembered this when
he reached the cherry tree. He sensed the flowing of the Isara
River. There were gentle sounds of flowing water.
Masahiko was starting to grapple with the sounds that were
constantly bubbling up. Composed of the voices from the
leaves and branches of all the various trees, they drew in all
the senses of his body. It was too much. Who, he wondered,
could be making such sounds? It felt as if his breath was being
taken away. The sound was like that of falling leaves. Although
the leaves in this sea of trees had already fallen, and
thirty years had already passed since the completion of the
dam, it was as if the sounds of hundreds of generations of
trees in this sea had gone unheard. Was this what he was hearing
now, all at once? Perhaps it was the wooden comb and
Omomo’s hair at her purification rite that had called out
these sounds.
In the deepening fog, it sometimes seemed to Masahiko that
he was hearing the heartbeat of the world of living things that
he had listened to before his birth. It also sounded like water
flowing endlessly over falls. The sound was the same as smell,
and color, and light. Sometimes he wished the sound would let
up. Then he noticed Kappei, looking at him in the moonlight.
Clearly Kappei was worried about something.
The layer of soil and rocks beneath the trees took on a slippery,
clay-like consistency and he felt himself being enveloped
in it. He wondered; am I being cast into the urn of Lake Amazoko
and sent back home through the water? It was as if he was
encountering the transparency of his own being for the first
time. From time to time he let out a rush of breath. He could
hear the voices of Ohina and Omomo. It was as if a bamboo
breathing tube had been inserted for the ones who had been
buried inside the urn.
279
Then the voices of the trees gathered together and changed
into the thundering sound of a waterfall. He was swept into
midst of a whirlpool. The sights around him spun about at supersonic
speed. Masahiko felt as if all the things of the city that
he had been drawing out of himself, along with all his new
half-formed ideas, were being cast into the waterfall and his latent
consciousness of both the village and himself were being
merged together.
A small bright red flower appeared, its outline showing amidst
the light shining through the trees. Quickly both sound and sight
were stilled. The song was coming to an end. The white robes
vanished. Perhaps it was because they had entered the grass hut?
Nearby he heard a pleasant-sounding voice. It was Kappei.
“Looks like it’s about time for the pomegranates to bloom.”
“I s’pose you’re right,” added Chiyomatsu. “The water’s getting
thicker. The pomegranate blossoms are beautiful around
this time of year.”
The muddied currents of the river were roiled and moving
along at a good speed. Along the banks of the river the tree
branches were hanging and swaying gently along the surface
of the water.
“Seems when Kappei’s father died it was about when the
pomegranates were in bloom, wasn’t it?”
It was Oshizu speaking. He couldn’t make out her expression.
“Right near the spot on the river we used to use for washing
clothes, that’s where Kappei’s family’s house and the prayer
hall Oai-sama built for Sayuri used to be.”
Masahiko thought he could hear a bell sounding faintly
through the fog. It sounded like a fire alarm.
“I saw Kappei when he was just a kid, running along the
pathway through a rice field in the rain.”
Since Chiyomatsu was telling him about these things,
Masahiko took great interest in how the waking dreams of the
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group were steeped in countless layers of experience, gained over
the long passage of reality. He wondered if he was watching the
workings of dreams in which each person was not merely a single
being but a part of the greater body of a community.
Suddenly he recalled something he had entirely forgotten. His
grandfather had told him a story. When he was in the hospital after
returning as a survivor from the war in Okinawa he had heard
this story from a knowledgeable man he met there. It was about
how a group of people in a town in Tosa had been haunted by a
badger. It had actually happened and it had caused a panic, such
that when the officials of the feudal government heard about it
they had treated it seriously and dispatched officers to investigate.
It was written down in the records.
“They say that back at the end of the Edo Period there was
an eight hundred year-old badger that haunted many of the
villages, and neither the village head men nor the priests from
the Buddhist temples or the Shinto shrines could deal with it.
During the daytime people would tend their fields, but when
a warm wind blew in from the east they jumped about and
acted completely unlike human beings, right in front of the officers.
And they say that in the old days the badger was seen
in Amazoko as well.”
Masahiko had still been in junior high school at the time he
heard the story and since it was rare for his normally taciturn
grandfather to get so excited in talking about something it had
stimulated the boy to imagine the village of Amazoko that had
been submerged by the dam, without ever having seen it directly.
He had imagined the village as being way off in the
mountains and cut off from the modern age, but he hadn’t
been able to pass it off as representing a foolish, ignorant
world. It had been strange to hear of people in the village being
possessed—not just by foxes, but by badgers as well—and of
their jumping about, but he understood that his grandfather
281
had an indescribable intimacy with the old village he had left.
He hadn’t taken the story as a superstition-bound tale of ignorant
people living somewhere off in the distant countryside.
There were all kinds of spirits to be found in human history
and he was comparing them with what existed among modern
people, focusing particularly on the spirit embedded in the
oldest layers of that history, and trying to read the hidden
meaning that lay within it.
If Oshizu and Chiyomatsu, and perhaps the old priest had
lived just a little earlier in time it wouldn’t have been out of the
ordinary for them to have been possessed by a spirit. If one
compared these people who returned in their dreams to a
sunken village with the people living in cities who, caught up
in the march of civilization, have become so cut off from such
things and no longer have a place of return, didn’t it seem that
the ones who returned in dreams were at least a little consoled,
and perhaps better off? And yet these people’s returns
didn’t seem to take such a long time. Such were the fragments
of thoughts whirling about within Masahiko’s head.
In the voices of Kappei and Chiyomatsu, Masahiko could
hear tones of classical elegance and grace. These voices had
become the sounds upon which he hoped to base his musical
composition “Mountain Mists.” Since coming here he had
found that the sounds of the local dialect—that “Kumaso language”
his mother had so ridiculed—had become pleasing to
his ear, and this realization was far from unwelcome.
And tonight, in a world bewitched by things far more mysterious
even than foxes and badgers, Masahiko from Tokyo had
joined these people by the banks of the dam where Ohina and
Omomo had sung the sacred songs. Hadn’t the elders given
their complete attention and dignity as they slipped their feet
over the freshly prepared reed flooring and proceeded along
what looked like the bridge of passage of a Noh stage? After reCHAPTER
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ceiving Ohina’s invocation they had listened to Omomo’s sacred
song, and as their spirits were carried to the depths of the waters
all of them had become part of Masahiko’s poetic drama.
Even when they weren’t performing such ceremonies, weren’t
these people continually enacting a living myth in which they
were reviving their submerged village? No doubt the former village
of the now-sunken Amazoko remained at the roots of their
spiritual lives; lives kept alive by drinking from the waters of a
spring that no longer existed in the reflected world above in
which they were living. It now struck Masahiko that in their
“reflected” lives they had constructed a sort of provisional residence
in a world apart from their village below.
From the darkened stand of trees behind them shone the
light of a flashlight. Someone was moving toward them. The
men and women all strained their eyes in trying to see who it
could be. Kappei took out a flashlight. He called out as he
shone it at the person’s feet.
“Here. Over here.”
He used few words, so as not to make too much noise, and
the other person seemed to have understood. This other person
called out.
“Me. It’s me.”
“Karehito-san.”
The people whispered together. Until hearing the voice they
hadn’t been able to tell who it was. The young priest bent forward,
pressed his palms together, and whispered. “Have you
finished already? Is there still more to come?”
Kappei whispered in reply. “I think there’s still more.”
“Since it’s higan it was hard to get away, but finally I made it.”
Breathing hard, the priest wiped his neck and chest. Silently,
the elders pressed their hands together and bowed their heads
respectfully in greeting.
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Kappei stood as he waited for Karehito to catch his breath.
Then he raised one hand lightly, leaned forward, and moved
toward the grass hut.
In the space between the hut and where the people were
seated there was a rock large enough for three people to sit on.
Masahiko remembered that rock. Kappei was walking with his
flashlight fixed on the ground, but when he got to the rock he
groped along the top of it carefully with his hand. Then with
slow steps he returned to his former place. It was clear that on
this night Kappei was carrying out some sort of duty. Rather
than his usual navy blue and red jacket, he was wearing a black
robe. It reminded Masahiko of the black-robed stage workers at
the traditional theater. It seemed that the elders took this as
natural.
As soon as Kappei sat down, faint lights appeared from
amidst the thatched grass hut, giving it the appearance of a
wicker cage with fireflies inside. Captivated by the sight,
everyone straightened up and strained their eyes to see. The
only sound was the faint call of a nearby insect. It was so silent
it seemed the insects on the far bank of the lake might even be
heard. The lights from the grass hut were fainter even than
those of fireflies in a cage; so much so that even the scattered
light from the stars and the waxing moon sky was brighter
than them. Had the two people in the hut perhaps even been
changed into fireflies? Creating such an impression, the grass
hut stood as if breathing.
The night sky appeared to be spread out even more broadly
than the sky of daytime, making the grass hut with its barelyvisible
light appear even smaller. With not a single other light
all around, the scene also looked as if it could be a nest of phosphorescent
creatures at the depths of the ocean. Again
Masahiko felt a sense of Chiyomatsu’s words about the “thick”
quality of the water.
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In fact the mountain mist was rolling in again. The grass
hut, which emitted a faint light, could be seen as signaling the
whereabouts of the spirit of mountains that was now submerged
under the water. In the mist the door of the hut
opened. Ohina emerged holding a large burning candle. Then
Omomo appeared holding a similar candle, encircled by the
long white sleeves of her white robe. The wavering of the candle
flames made visible the drifting of the fog.
“Looks like it’s going to be a damp one tonight.”
Oshizu, breathing heavily, pulled her quilted coat more
tightly about her. She had brought it along knowing it was
likely to be misty and damp up in the mountains. In the silence
everyone nodded animatedly at the old woman so that
she, with her weak eyes, could see them. Shining through the
mist, the lights from the candle flames and white robes passed
back and forth in front of their eyes and then moved beyond.
Trying to catch a glimpse of the blue obi he’d seen in his
dream, Masahiko kept his eyes fixed like a hawk on Omomo’s
waist.
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