Gaijin

by Sarah Z Sleeper

  Hisashi arranged a private car. Speeding out of busy Tokyo the scenery morphed into greenscapes and wooded areas. We passed small towns with traditional elevated houses, and sloped farmland covered in rice paddies and wheat fields. We wound our way through hills where cows grazed, standing at diagonal angles, and we passed a stunning field of fuchsia flowers, “pink moss,” Hisashi said, in bloom for an unseasonably long time this year.

  After two hours we came to the edge of a lake and stopped in front of a path lined with a profusion of orange and red maples that led to a giant Buddha statue. Hisashi told me many such monuments dotted this countryside. The statue was imposing, made of stone, seated like a king on a throne of blossoms. We spent a few minutes there among the other tourists, meditative and respectfully quiet. I silently prayed we wouldn’t encounter people in Suicide Forest or see remnants of death.

  Next, we drove to a little village with an unobstructed view of Mt. Fuji across glassy water. “This is Lake Ashi,” Hisashi told me, “Lake of Reeds.” He said we wouldn’t take a tourist boat ride but that we should grab a bite. The town was called Fujinomiya and it was popular with visitors. We sat in an open-air restaurant and ordered beers. My urge to drink had waned in the past week and one beer hit the spot. Glasses of wine or sake didn’t appeal to me the way they had during my first tumultuous month in Japan. The sun was muted, and the air was light and crisp, scented with fried fish and flowers. The day felt like a new beginning, like a do-over of my arrival in Japan.

  Tourists on foot followed guides with tall signs. “Holiday Inn.” “Viator.” “Mr. Carlinski.” Hisashi told me the signs were ad hoc or proper names so that tour groups wouldn’t lose each other. There was a blonde family with Australian accents, a gang of twenty or so stout elderly folks, and two groups of Japanese.

  In the near distance, thicker clouds blanketed Mt. Fuji’s peak and its wide, brown sides were not as majestic as I’d expected. Hisashi filled me in on the history of the mountain, its popularity as a place for climbers, artists and spiritual seekers for hundreds of years, and its status as a national symbol of Japan, with its symmetry and gentle slopes. Things I already knew, but I enjoyed Hisashi’s confident professorial tone as he spoke. “The mountain is like the spirit of its people,” he said. “Gentle and beautiful.” I remembered Owen teaching me about haiku in a similar tone. They both were natural sensei.

  After lunch he said, “Are you ready?”

  “Ready to go to Suicide Forest?”

  “No. Ready to hear my lesson about it.” He grinned and I nodded. He told me that in the nineteenth century and other eras when Japan was in famine, poor families deserted sick young children and old people in Aokigahara, those they couldn’t afford to care for. Today, some Japanese believe their spirits remain in the forest in the form of ghosts, goblins and even demons. “Ubasute. That’s what the practice was called. It means abandoning the infirm.”

  I shuddered and imagined an old woman on a forest floor, wasted away, and Owen, swinging from a dark tree. “It’s a quiet, windless forest,” he continued. “Such dense growth that it’s almost silent inside.” Hisashi pointed toward the left base of the mountain, anchored by a blur of shadowy foliage. “The ground is dried magma from a volcanic explosion one thousand years ago.”

  The rumor, he said, is that the forest is infected with sorrow down to the tree roots and the dirt. Some say the forest itself has taken on the pain of the people left there to die and that it holds their misery captive somehow, so a depressed person finds it easier to kill himself there. “That’s what I believe,” Hisashi said. “Owen might not have tried to do it if he hadn’t gone to Suicide Forest. His depression would have passed, and he could’ve worked things out with our father.” It surprised me to hear that Hisashi believed a haunted forest could have contributed to Owen’s suicide attempt. I hadn’t known Hisashi had a mystical side, had thought of him as practical, solid, of the here and now. I pointed out that his father hadn’t been as harsh as he’d led me to believe he’d be. “That’s because you were there,” Hisashi said. “He’d never want you to be uncomfortable in his home. That’s the Japanese way.”

  We drove around the lake and soon we arrived at a parking lot near the edge of a thick wall of trees and the dark entrance to a trail. There were a few cars in the lot, several covered in telltale leaves and grime; they’d been there a while.

  “Let’s go in just a little way,” Hisashi said, and gripped my hand. I paused to collect my thoughts. This could very well be the forest opening that Owen had seen. I shuddered and we started to walk. Though it was still summer, the trees at the start of the trail had a mixture of dead leaves and sickly green and yellow leaves hanging by threads, clinging to life.

  The path was hard and uneven under my feet, with tree roots that crawled in every direction, twisting around and over each other, in a fight for survival. The dusty lava floor of the forest was penetrable to a few inches only, so trees had a slack hold on the ground. Many tilted at crazy angles or drooped as the weight of their bulk strained to yank them from the earth. Over our heads, black branches clawed at each other and pointed bent fingers in blame. Which tree was the one Owen had approached, which others bore dark witness? Hemlock firs, Japanese cypress and andromeda, and Mongolian oaks had a death-grip on the sky, blocking all but tiny shards of light. I breathed in the sour smell of mold and moldering moss, and some critter, a lone mole or a mouse, careened away from our approaching feet. The silence was broken only by our labored breathing and our feet as they crunched rotted leaves. The dank atmosphere pressed down on me and I had a sense of dread, as if we could somehow lose our minds and meet our doom here as so many others had done.

  After a hundred yards or so the charcoal green and grey foliage trail bled into an ochre and slate gauze that muddied our visibility. We reached our hands out in front of us, to avoid colliding with the fallen corpse of a tree. The air grew icy and my skin jolted with goosebumps. It was at least twenty degrees colder inside this frightful forest.

  Hisashi squeezed my hand, stopped and pointed to a placard nailed to a tree. “‘Think of your family.’ That’s what it says,” he said. “The police post signs to discourage people from going further.” His voice was tattered and quiet. Owen could have seen that sign and ignored its plea. Perhaps he felt drawn in by the sorrowful spirits who perished there and sought the company of other sad souls.

  We kept moving and came to a small clearing, another placard on a tree, the name and phone number of a suicide prevention hotline. It was horrifying to realize that some one hundred people a year encountered that sign and chose to ignore it. Despite the cold, my hands were clammy as we moved on past several more placards.

  “We aren’t supposed to go off the path,” Hisashi said. “These signs warn hikers to stay on the path.”

  I had my sights set on a tree trunk just ahead—a giant, bigger than the others. I strained for some sound, another human voice or the rustling of foliage, but the forest was mute. Suddenly, a solitary shrill bird call echoed around us and I jumped, almost fell.

  “Slow down,” Hisashi said, and tugged my hand. But I kept going toward the massive tree that towered in front of us. It was licorice-black and stark naked. It looked as though it had always been dead.

  A flash on the ground caught my eye. I fumbled for my phone and flicked on the light. At our feet was a royal blue ribbon, faded a little from weather or time. It was on the path and wound around the base of the dead giant. “What’s this?”

  Hisashi frowned as if unsure he should answer, then said, “That’s what people use when they aren’t sure they really want to go through with it. Someone would track his steps with a ribbon. If he changes his mind, the ribbon helps him find his way back out.”

  I reached down to touch it but then realized it might be sacred, someone’s last memento, a relic leading to the spot where they took their last breath. I drew back my hand. “Can we see where it leads?” I asked Hisashi.

  “
Okay. But be ready for what might be at the end.”

  My legs were shaky, but I was determined to know what revelation or misery we might find at the end of the ribbon. It felt imperative that we make our way to its final point, to bear witness to what was there.

  “If we go, can you find the way out?” I asked, and he assured me he could. I was aware that my resolve to go on was somewhat careless, but Hisashi didn’t try to stop me. He swung his arm over my shoulders and drew me in so that our torsos touched. Strangely, in this gloomy place, Hisashi’s presence offered a layer of protection, both physical and emotional. He was my own personal shisa, able to guide me and keep bad spirits at bay. He was confident when I was afraid, cautious when I was reckless.

  After a few hundred yards, we reached the ribbon’s end. It was nailed to a low tree branch. I scanned the ground. I didn’t see any sign a person had been here, no empty water bottles, no discarded granola wrappers, no lost sunglasses. Then something caught my attention, sticking up near a knotty bunch of roots. We peered and moved closer—it was the toe guard of a pink and white sneaker. I sprang backward and bumped into Hisashi and he tottered but then regained his balance. Together we brushed away the dirt and discovered that the other shoe was there too, next to the first one. I was alarmed. What if legs were still attached to the shoes? Hisashi swept away more debris until he got to smooth ground below. Nothing else was there. Just this pair of shoes, about a women’s size seven, in good shape.

  Hisashi tapped my arm and pointed his phone light up the tree. I squinted to bring the jumble of branches into focus. Then I saw it, four pieces of thick rope hanging over a limb, their frayed edges uniformly cut. The remnants of a noose. And here below, her shoes, having fallen off during the suicide or perhaps she’d removed them before. I went hollow inside.

  “The authorities probably cut the rope to remove the body, but didn’t see the shoes,” Hisashi whispered. “Otherwise they would have taken them away. It must be recent, or they’d have taken the rope too.”

  I stared up at the rope. October. That’s when Owen had left Illinois. November, that’s when he wanted to die. The article had said there were four suicides on the day Owen was here. This forest would have been even darker and colder, with deadness all around. Dead trees, dead bodies, the ghosts of ancient dead.

  As I backed away, my foot caught on a tree root, and I fell hard on my backside. Hisashi bent and hauled me up with both hands. I was disoriented as we headed back toward the path. We trudged along as briskly as we could, taking high steps to avoid another trip and fall. In an hour or so, the sunlight up ahead beckoned us. I’d never wanted to get out of anywhere as much as I wanted to get out of that forest. It’s as if the ghosts of the dead tried to wrap their phantom fingers around my arms and legs and drag me back in. Owen must have felt them too, and he found the will to pry them away.

  A man in a black uniform came crashing out of the woods and stood in front of us, shouted and gestured toward the parking lot. Hisashi bowed and said, “Hai, hai, onegaishimasu.” The ranger’s face was a mix of irritation and concern. Clearly, he knew we’d been off the path and wanted to make sure we exited and didn’t go back in. We hurried toward the light, toward the way out.

  When we emerged into the parking lot there was a group of uniformed men and a tow truck taking away a filthy car. Underneath the grime, the car was the same royal blue color as the ribbon we’d followed, and its license plate was framed in pink crystals, the color of the pretty pink gym shoes we’d found. I felt sick and turned away, walked back to the mouth of the path. Peering into the murky forest, I tried to imagine what Owen had seen and felt when he walked in. Despair must have been so deep in Owen’s bones that he couldn’t see the light that shone out from within him, so apparent to everyone else. He had been so young, as I had been when I knew him, with emotions so intense they overshadowed the reality of his situation. Maybe with the passage of time, Owen would outgrow his shame, and learn to accept himself whether or not his father did. My heart ached, not only for the loss of Owen from my life, but also for my new awareness about the nature of shame. I’d been ashamed by the upskirt attacker, and by the man who yelled a slur at me in the courtroom, but they were minor indignities compared to what it must have been like for Owen, shamed by his own father.

  We stayed a few more moments and looked back through the entangled dark branches. Shadows and fuzzy shapes shifted in and out of focus and from this vantage point, outside looking in, I swear I heard the trees hiss dire warnings. A stiff wind rustled my curls and Hisashi wiped his eyes. I didn’t want to intrude on his grief; mine was so small in comparison. I lost an emotional fantasy, but he lost the presence of his brother in his daily life. I’d expected to understand more about Owen from this pilgrimage to Suicide Forest, but instead I learned more about Hisashi, a man who though he suffered because he missed his brother and understood the folly of my feelings for him, still treated me like a little sister, to be safeguarded and guided.

  My search for answers had driven me to these haunted, forsaken woods, Aokigahara, Suicide Forest, a place so vile that Japanese deny its existence, and so frightening only the most desperate dare to enter. When I began my search, I’d known nothing of this vast wasteland of lost souls or the strange path I’d take to get here. I’d gone from Evanston to Okinawa to Tokyo, and finally to Aokigahara and now, it was time to go away from this sad place, and to let Owen go too.

  * * *

  We didn’t speak on the way back to Tokyo, both lost in our own thoughts. Back at the Ota’s house, Hisashi excused himself to shower. While he was gone, I sat in my bedroom window, watching the Tokyo lights twinkling on the horizon. The city of my dreams was stretched out before me like a star-lighted prairie and tomorrow I’d get to see it up close in the light of a cool new day.

  When Hisashi came back he said, “I don’t feel better, just sadder.” I hugged him, squeezing his broad torso, inhaling the soapy smell of his hair. Of course, his sadness about Owen’s absence from the Ota’s lives needed more time to subside.

  “You know, I bet he’ll contact you,” I said. He moved close to me and dropped his head on to my shoulder and I felt his tears dampen my sleeve. It was a sweet, sorrowful moment that I have remembered ever since.

  Later that night, I asked Hisashi about the haiku Owen had published. He left the room and returned with a little paperback book called, Hotaru.

  “Firefly, that’s what hotaru means. It’s the name of the literary journal.” He told me that in Japanese lore, hotarus signify love and are a popular image in romantic poetry. He opened the book and handed it to me. There it was. “Lit,” by Owen Ota. The haiku he’d published as a teenager.

  * * *

  Sky doused and skin moist

  hands like hotarus in clouds

  My heart, lit at last

  * * *

  I thought back to the haiku lesson that Owen and I had shared so long ago. He’d told me a haiku uses nature, but with a twist that illuminates the end of the poem and clarifies its meaning. I read his haiku again and maybe I understood what Owen was trying to say. I was glad he’d felt lit up, for at least some of his life. I wished I could tell him how much he’d lit up my world, opened my heart.

  The next day, Hisashi and I toured Tokyo and it was what I knew it would be. Vibrant, beautiful, exciting, hectic, exotic, but also, anything but exotic, with people bumping about talking on cell phones, not looking at each other.

  Epilogue

  Hisashi and I visited Tokyo many times in the next few years and on one trip, I was astonished to see Owen, standing in the Ota’s doorway. He looked precisely as I remembered, tall, dressed in black, and the coolest human I’d ever seen. I didn’t have the chance to say anything before Hisashi ran over and smothered him in a hug, lifted his feet off the ground.

  “Man. I’ve missed you,” Hisashi said. And Owen smiled his big bright smile at Hisashi and then me. They exchanged a few words in private and then Owen turned to me.
/>
  “Lucy!”

  I got a chill from the shock of seeing him again, hearing his voice. “Owen!” And we hugged, the hug of old friends.

  We went inside and sat in the living room. Mr. and Mrs. Ota were already sitting, sipping cold sake. Mr. Ota was radiant, glowing from happiness at the arrival of his wayward son. “He surprised us! It’s been too long, and we are thrilled he’s returned.”

  Owen told us that he lived in downtown Tokyo and had an editorial job with a nature magazine. He said he’d managed to finish college and got his degree in journalism, just like I had. “Lucy, you work with Hisashi?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I keep track of people I care about,” he said and shot me his familiar sweet smile. I was elated to be sitting with Owen after being certain I’d never see him again.

  “Are you staying for a while?” Mrs. Ota said, her voice edged with hope.

  “I’ll stay overnight,” Owen said. “I have to get back to work tomorrow.”

  The conversation carried on, with the family getting caught up on all they’d been doing, galas, travel, Hisashi’s work at Okinawa Week, Owen’s love for life in the city. I stayed fairly quiet, not wanting to intrude on the family’s reunion. It had been almost two years since anyone had seen Owen and the atmosphere in the room felt celebratory. If Mr. Ota still felt ashamed of his son, it was not evident.

  Before we turned in for the night, Owen took me aside. We stood in the long hallway and put both his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Lu. I really am. For confusing you and for leaving so suddenly. I should have apologized much sooner. I was very insecure back then.”

  “You did text. You texted, ‘Sorry Lu.’”

  “Please tell me you don’t hate me,” he said, his eyes searching mine. He could never know the depth of my heartbreak over him and I wouldn’t tell him. I didn’t want him to feel worse.