by Meira Chand
After a while the road met the curve of a river, houses on either side of it. The river lay very low, a long way down from the edge of the road and the houses. Its sides were reinforced by a pebbling of stone and concrete. The bed was a series of massive steps, breaking the steep descent of the river. It was empty and dry, overgrown by flowering weeds. At one side a narrow flow of water trickled over the rubble of stones and shrubs. Children played down there, holding fishing rods in the water. A rusted pushchair lay on its side, old shoes and tyres, a wooden box and household remnants were littered about. They walked on beside the river, following the white guard rail at the side of the road, above the steep drop. At a narrow bridge Hiroko turned sharp left, up the slope of a hill.
There was no gate. They turned off the narrow road abruptly, into an opening between trees. The farmhouse stretched before them, old and ramshackle. The roof was thatched a metre thick, eaves reaching deeply over the sides of the house. The sliding wooden window shutters were all closed. A small truck and four bicycles were parked against one wall. At the end of the house bamboo logs piled in a high mound, their hollow ends a honeycomb of dark holes. Where they stood a two-storey modern outhouse had been added to the main thatched building. From its second floor washing hung thickly on a rough wooden balcony. An earthen courtyard lay in front of the old house, in it a pond, a few short trees and a forest of potted shrubs. Hiroko walked straight to the main door. Natsuko followed, glancing over her shoulder at the murky pond, the water floating with scum and leaves. She thought she saw the bright red shadow of a fish. Then they passed under the deep eaves of the house, and through the door.
Inside it was dark. She stumbled against Hiroko. There seemed at first nothing about her but dim, cavernous space. Then, way above she saw a small patch of light, through a smoke hole in the roof. It filtered on to the scaffolding of beams, crossing and recrossing the deep space beneath the roof. The huge rafters were warped, blackened by soot and age. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the dimness now. She made out a curved, white tiled hearth, waist high, with ancient rusted iron cauldrons sunken into its broad top, abandoned long before. To the right was a small window, a modern sink, a range of gas burners and refrigerator. Along one wall of the kitchen stood several large earthenware jars of pickles, fermenting in yeasty rice bran. They filled the air with a sour pungency. To the left was a high wooden step up into the living section of the house, and a wall of paper doors. Hiroko stepped up, leaving her shoes on the earthen floor, and slid back a door. Behind was a rush-matted tatami room, full of people.
An old woman lay between quilts in the middle of the room, and everyone knelt on the floor around her. As Hiroko came in the family looked up and greeted her, making a place beside the bed. Natsuko knelt down awkwardly behind Hiroko. The room was small, partitioned off by another wall of paper doors. Natsuko’s cramped toes touched the door behind her. She was kneeling uncomfortably on a hard, covered join between mats. She could barely move; crowded in about her were Hiroko’s relatives and neighbours. It was dim in this room too. The heavy outer shutters of the window were drawn, leaving only a slim gap of light to filter through the thin paper shutters. It was difficult to believe there was sun outside. They had entered a twilight world.
Hiroko’s mother lay motionless between the quilts, she seemed asleep. Her skin was flaccid and soft, and slid loosely over the bones of her face, falling into pouches beside her mouth and beneath her chin. The thick double fold of eyelid reminded Natsuko of Hiroko. Saliva dribbled from the corner of her mouth. At regular intervals, an elderly woman bent forward and dabbed it with a tissue.
They sat for a long time. Natsuko’s legs grew stiff and numb. About her people talked about the old woman, and the details of her illness. Something festered, eating away at her from inside. Nothing could be done. Another operation would be useless. As they spoke the woman stirred and moaned, eyes still closed. She turned suddenly on her side, heaving the quilts with her. Her hand crept along the edge of the upper one, and gripped the white cover. Her fingers were thin and small, the skin a loose, wrinkled glove. Over its top a raised mesh of veins resembled the long gnarled roots of an old tree. She settled with a sigh. The woman who had dabbed at her mouth leaned forward again, tugging the quilts back into place, meeting the corners exactly, one upon the other.
The door slid back behind Natsuko, someone stepped over her feet. A young girl carried in a tray of tea bowls. Natsuko reached up at her turn and took one. Blue patterned and squat, the bowl filled her cupped hands, its warmth spreading into her fingers. She looked through the clear green liquid to dots of sediment and a grain of puffed rice that had escaped the spout of the pot. She drank and it was good, light and hot against the dryness of her throat. Someone else came in with a large aluminium kettle and refilled the bowls. Around the sick woman everyone changed positions, drew back, relaxed and began to talk of other things. Suddenly, remembering then, Hiroko turned and told Natsuko she might go outside.
For a moment daylight dazzled her eyes. The air was sweet after the stale body smells and the odour of fermenting pickles. She took long breaths, walking to the pond. It reminded her of water left in a bowl after dishwashing, thick and opaque. Leaves and unbroken bubbles drifted over the surface. Dimly beneath the surface she saw the bodies of fish. A long-legged insect sat astride a bubble, flew up and realighted elsewhere on the water. The back of the pond met a bank of small trees against the wall of the next house. The other three sides of the pond were massed with an army of potted shrubs and bonsai trees. Row after row, they crowded the ground or stood in tiers on wooden racks. A few of the bonsai grew free of pots, clinging to large stones. Their long roots crept down like claws, gripping the moss-covered stone, above their trunks were weathered and bent. Natsuko crouched down, running her finger over their knotted spindly roots and tiny leaves. She looked at the profusion of larger trees behind the pond, at their round flat leaves, restless in the breeze, and then back to the little potted goblins, stunted and miniaturized. It was as if their spirits had been forced back into a narrow tunnel, to be viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. She wished suddenly they would all rear up, out of their incarceration, breaking their pots, filling the garden with huge revengeful trunks and branches.
Thinking this, dipping her fingers in the pond, she saw a man’s feet appear suddenly beside her. He wore the foot covering of labourers, a dark blue, cleft-toed canvas sock. It hooked tightly up the leg to the calf, the cleft seamed up the middle of the foot. The feet, with their cloven shape, appeared more an animal hoof than a human limb. The end of the toes were beginning to fray, grey with dust and mud. Natsuko drew her finger from the water, and looked up. The man had not been among the people in the room around the old woman. She would have remembered the small eyes nearly hidden between a cliff of brow and bulging cheekbones. They were like currants, pushed deep into a bun. His skin was brown and weathered against the narrow white towel that was tucked into the collar of his maroon sweater.
Without speaking, he squatted down beside her. Leaning forward he pushed his hand deep into the water, until it rose up high around his arm. Then, pulling out his hand he smiled again, opening his clenched fist near Natsuko’s face. In his square palm was a glutinous mass of frog spawn. Within each slimy cell of jelly was the black, squirming body of a tadpole. Still without speaking, but nodding agreeably, he thrust his palm nearer. Hesitantly, Natsuko put out a finger. The frog-spawn was clammy and cold, and she drew back quickly. He smiled and nodded and slid in a mucousy lump back into the water. Wiping his hand on the back of his trousers he stood up, and silently beckoned.
Natsuko followed him along the narrow flagged path, to the back of the pond. There he stopped, bending forward, searching for something among the tall blades of iris leaves, parting the stems carefully. Then he turned, motioning her to come and look. She walked over and stood beside him. At first she saw nothing, for the toad was half hidden under a stone. Then it moved and she saw the small
stout body, the colour of soil. The glassy eyes looked at her, the thin membrane beneath its chin dilated and throbbed. Suddenly it jumped. The body flicked upwards like a muddy pebble, and she started back so abruptly she stumbled. The man put out a hand, steadying her. The red, rough knuckles clasped about her arm, the fingers ingrained with dirt. Over his wrist short black hairs lay flat and wet. He smiled again, and the warmth of his breath touched her face. Pulling free she ran back again towards the house. Before she reached the door Hiroko came out, carrying their bags.
‘There is no room for us in the house. We’ll have to sleep above the workshop.’ Hiroko stopped as she saw the man. Tilting her head to one side she gave a small bow, smiling coquettishly up at him.
Natsuko followed her into a new building adjoining the old thatched house. It was cool and damp after the warm sun. The small room was bare except for bundles of dark-wirey sticks heaped about the walls. An elderly woman in baggy-legged, blue patterned peasant trousers, a white scarf about her head, sat on a stool in the middle of the room, and greeted Hiroko. A mound of the sticks was loose at her feet, the stems wet and shiny like twisting snakes. With a short knife she peeled off the black bark, stripping it quickly from the white inner stems. In her hand the knife flashed backwards and forwards, the small curved blade glinting in the light, loose skins curling in a pile at her feet. Near by a huge metal vat balanced on a great gas burner. A blue gas pipe snaked away across the floor to a point in the wall, heat radiated out fiercely from the simmering vat. Hiroko stopped to explain that what was boiling in the vat formed the basis of paper, the white gampi shrubs and a residue of wood ash. Later hibiscus root glue and mud soil would be added. Hiroko’s family were paper-makers, who still practiced the traditional art, and she had grudgingly explained this to Natsuko on the bus.
The peasant woman’s face was shiny with sweat, and as they passed near the vat of boiling shrubs, the air was hot. There was another room opening off into the back, but Hiroko passed this and walked to a ladder-like stair of open planks, reaching up to a square opening in the ceiling. She began swinging herself up in an easy rhythm. Natsuko slipped her knapsack onto her back, so that both hands were free. Holding on to the side struts she began to climb behind Hiroko, careful not to look down between the open spaces of the steps, the room below seemed a long way beneath her. The peasant woman was all foreshortened, a flat head and scarf with hands and blue knees sticking out of it. The boiling vat of shrub pulp was under Natsuko now, she looked straight down into it. Rising up from it, steam settled damply on the backs of her hands and bare legs. Quickly she turned her eyes up, to the ceiling. It was very bright above, after the dank room below. For a moment she felt this must be like entering Heaven. Then she was there, heaving herself on all fours, into the room.
It was large, covering both the rooms downstairs. The centre was matted and clean, but about the wall there were towers of empty baskets, boxes crammed with dirty roots and rocks, newspapers, rags, and an old spinning wheel. In the middle of the room, the paper doors that could divide the room had been pulled to one side, making one large space. There were two windows, one looking down into the road to the river, and the other on to a balcony of washing. Between aprons, shirts and underwear, the thatch of the old house could be seen. Beyond the thatch down in the yard, Natsuko could see the man, loitering by the pond.
‘Who is he?’ she asked.
‘Only Shojiro. He has been here for years.’ Hiroko pulled a face at the window.
‘Is he one of your family?’
‘He’s related to my brother-in-law in a distant way. But what do you want to know all this for? Why are you so interested in Shojiro?’ asked Hiroko.
Natsuko remembered the curranty eyes and swallowed the words in her mouth. But without waiting for an answer Hiroko pushed in front of her, opening the window. Climbing out on to the balcony she began to gather up the washing. From below Shojiro watched her. The white starched sleeves of aprons and shirts stuck out stiffly from her arms at awkward angles, as if she carried severed limbs. Piled up against her chest, chin pressing down upon the clothes, she climbed back in and dumped the load upon the floor.
‘Now, they have quilts for us to sleep on in there.’ Hiroko pointed to the paper doors of a cupboard along one wall of the room. A dark blue band with gold speckled clouds upon it bordered each door. Sliding back the fusuma, Hiroko pulled out the quilts.
‘There is a lot to be done in the house. I’ve no time for any nonsense from you. Lay out the quilts, and stay up here until I call you. Dinner will not be long. If you don’t behave I shall punish you. There will be nobody here to help you,’ Hiroko was her vicious self again, heaving the quilts out on to the floor.
‘These are the uppers, these are the lower ones. Lay them out there, behind the divider. The pillows are in the cupboard.’ There still remained another set of quilts. Hiroko hesitated, then pulled them out also.
‘These must be Shojiro’s.’ She dragged them across the floor to the other side of the room, and pulled shut the paper divider, cutting the room in two. Then she was gone; disappearing down the stair shaft. There was a small grating sound as she pushed her feet into her wooden clogs, at the bottom of the steps, then the clatter of them across the cement floor. Silence.
Natsuko turned to the quilts, they were heavy and cumbersome, especially the firmly packed lower ones. Bending and heaving, she felt again the throbbing in her head, the dry irritation in her throat, and knew she was sickening with something. But at last the futons were in place, side by side in white coverlets, like two neat envelopes. She reached into the cupboard for the bean pillows. A warm musty smell surrounded her head. It was deep enough to crawl inside. Stretching in she managed to pull out the two small pillows, and placed one on each bed.
Then there was nothing to do. She did not dare go down. Wandering round the room, she examined the dusty baskets, and the old spinning wheel. Then, pulling back the window she squeezed through it, out on to the balcony.
There were gaps between the wooden planks of the floor, she could see the ground below her. The thatch of the main house was very near here, thick and bristly. Hanging on to a supporting strut of balcony, leaning out as far as she could, the tips of her fingers just grazed the stubble. It was hard as packed wire, scratchy on her fingertips. In that position, her neck tense, the throb beat again in her head, making her feel suddenly sick. She drew back and leaned for a moment upon the upright post, pressing her forehead against the wood. Looking down through the gaps in the floor, she saw them then.
They were standing beneath her, half under the eaves of the old house. Hiroko and the man in the maroon sweater. At first she saw no more than a fragment of their bodies, and the sound of Hiroko’s broken laughter. Then they moved directly under the balcony. Through the slats she looked down on the tops of their heads. Hiroko laughed again.
‘Get away. Don’t be a nuisance. Is this the time?’ She gave Shojiro a push. Her fingers spread out, small and pale upon his red chest. The man stepped closer, his arm came up abruptly, like a short red bar, level with Hiroko’s breast. He reached out and squeezed the soft swell there. Against the white blouse his hand was a great spread legged insect, ugly and thick. But Hiroko only laughed coarsely, and pushed him off again. The arm fell back, the hand disappeared. And from Shojiro came not words but a series of gobbled sounds and grunts, half animal, half human. Then Shojiro turned and walked quickly into the workshop, and laughing to herself, Hiroko disappeared beneath the eaves.
Slowly, Natsuko climbed back through the window into the room. Shojiro was downstairs now, his presence crept through her. She waited for the noise of his feet on the stairs, and his strange gobbled sounds, but he did not come. She relaxed a little then, and carefully walked to the stair shaft. Kneeling down she was able to curl her head around the opening, and look into the room below. The vat simmered quietly above the blue ring of flame and a hiss of gas. She could see nothing of Shojiro but, from the room behind, came
a rhythmic swish and slap, and she knew he was working there. She pulled back from the stair shaft relieved.
Thinking it might ease the pain in her head, she lay down upon the quilts. The linen was soft and coarse under her cheek, warm from the sun through the window, it gave off the musty smell of the cupboard. Sun shone warmly through the window on to her face. She could see sky and the soft wavy line of hills. Woven in among dark conifers was the bright cerise of mountain azalea. She felt at peace looking at the view. In the midst of strangeness the mountains remained consistent and familiar, facing or backing everything in Japan.
It did not seem possible only that morning she had been at home. Time had stretched. Home was now a distant and place, far behind her, another dimension. It could have been days since she left. She thought about it then, seeking the comfort of its familiarity, she found in her mind only a dark house, filled with strange sensations and feelings she did not understand. The sound of her mother’s sobbing, the bleak window of rolling cloud, Hiroko’s jerking body behind the yellow dress. Hiroko. The house was emptied of her mother, and her absence tunnelled through each day. Hiroko. The small soft noises in her father’s room. Hiroko. Hiroko. Hiroko. She swelled up larger and larger, looming over each day, every moment threatened by her. Natsuko felt entirely alone. Wherever she looked for help she came back only to herself. Now, on the quilts in the farmhouse, the knots pulled tighter in her head. Turning on her side she clasped her arms about her knees, and fell into a fitful sleep.