The Gossamer Fly

by Meira Chand

  She dreamed she was walking up from the river again, turning off the road at Hiroko’s home.

  It was dark inside inside the house. Then, from the back of a room, the man in the maroon sweater, Shojiro, stepped forward, coming to get her. He was pulling the white towel from his neck. It kept on coming without end, and she saw it was really a long white rope. They were going to boil her in the vat of wood and shrubs. Running from the room she gave a tremendous leap, managing to clutch the lowest roof beam, and swing herself up. She began to climb but was hampered by a thick residue of soot on the beams. It blew up in clouds, filling her mouth, making her throat thick and dry. Once she looked down and saw the old hearth was in use again, all the rice pots bubbling and boiling away. The steam chased up after her, winding damply about her Over and over again she felt it rub across her face …

  She awoke with a jerk, feeling again the soft touch on her cheek, and opened her eyes.

  First she saw only the hand near her face, the broken nails and dirt-ingrained fingers. They touched her cheek like rough paper then, gently, the hair behind her ear. From the open palm was a smell of wood. Turning her eyes she saw Shojiro’s ribbed maroon sweater.

  A scream collected in the back of her throat. She remembered where she was, and sat up and found Shojiro’s face before her. Terrified, she pushed back against the wall, but, he did not move. The canvas socks were gone, bare ankles and feet stuck out of the tight leg of his trouser. They were pale and soft, and from the knuckle of each big toe long sparse hairs stood up. He wore traditional worker’s trousers, close fitting to the knee, swelling out from there like riding breeches, in a great curved seam. As he squatted the trouser pulled in long taut folds the length of his thigh. The crotch gaped unevenly, a button missing. His hands hung limply over his crouched knees. And still he did not move.

  Dusk was coming on. She did not know how long she had slept, how long he had squatted there, touching her, looking. He smiled, eyes screwing up even smaller behind his cheeks. Pointing to Natsuko’s hair he made odd grunting noises, swaying slightly on his haunches. Suddenly then, he opened his mouth, pointing inside with a finger, shaking his head.

  She understood then. He could not speak; he had no tongue. She could see the stub, there in his mouth. It moved up and down as he pointed and grunted, wet and purple, fleshy as raw meat.

  Pushing his hands down on his knees, he began to stand up, uncurling slowly. She knew this was the moment to run, before he straightened, before he came nearer. Scrambling up she darted forward, pushing into him, falling against the dividing paper door. Putting out a hand to save herself, she felt the paper give way, tearing across the door.

  Afterwards she could not remember how she got down the stairs. Her memory was of dropping the last few steps on to the concrete floor. Only then did she remember her shoes, side by side at the top of the ladder before the tatami matting.

  There was no time to go back for the shoes. She rushed on out of the workshop, straight into the hard wall of Hiroko. It knocked the breath from them both. Hiroko staggered back, Natsuko panted in short gasps, the collision reverberating in her chest.

  ‘What are you doing? I told you to stay up there.’ Hiroko was angry, filled still with shock.

  ‘He’s up there. He’s up there.’ She pointed behind her. It was difficult to get the words out. It was impossible to communicate the fear beating through her.

  ‘Who? Where? You never can do anything you are told, can you? Stay here,’ Hiroko said fiercely, striding into the workshop. There was the drag of her wooden clogs on the cement, and the creak of the ladder. Within a moment she was down, her face set.

  ‘It’s only Shojiro. What’s the matter with you? He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He just wanted to be friends. Now you’ve upset him.’

  ‘He kept touching me. And he has no tongue.’

  ‘He has never seen hair that colour before. He wouldn’t harm you. And think yourself lucky you were given a tongue.’ Hiroko stepped forward and gripped Natsuko’s arm hard.

  ‘Don’t try and divert my attention. You hoped I wouldn’t notice, didn’t you? I thought you were quiet. But you were just sitting there, digging your fingers through the paper doors. Have you seen the hole?’ She began dragging Natsuko forward. ‘Do you know how much it costs to mend a fusuma? And they have just been redone.’

  Nothing would pacify Hiroko, once she was into the rhythm of a mood.

  Pulled along behind Hiroko, the sharp points of stones pushed into her shoeless feet. Hiroko did not stop until she reached a clay-walled outhouse, at the other end of the thatched house. Here she opened a door and pushed Natsuko in.

  ‘You can stay there until the bath is heated and dinner is ready. You can get up to no mischief in there.’

  The light was suddenly shut away. A lock fell into place outside. For a few moments Natsuko beat her palm against the door, listening to Hiroko’s footsteps die away. There was the scrape of the house door sliding open, then shutting.

  There was nothing she could do but wait. It would not be long. Until the bath was heated, until dinner was ready. It was already dusk. It could not be for long. She would not cry. That was what Hiroko wanted. She could sit and wait, calmly.

  It was not quite dark in the room. It was difficult to make out what it was used for. The floor was earthen, not cemented like the workshop. High up at one end was a narrow slot of window, thick with dust, half hidden behind assorted oddments. A weak light filtered down from it. Natsuko tried to define the things around her. There was a sour musty smell of earth and wet sacking. Her feet were cold, sore and bruised, but her eyes were accustomed to the darkness now. She made out the large solid form of a box and sat down upon it. A pile of baskets with wide loose plaiting, garden shears, coils of wire, sticks of wood, protruded here and there. The room was stale and dark and unknown. Her heart beat fast in panic.

  It is all right. It is not dark. She repeated the words to herself aloud. But her voice was that of a stranger, and frightened her further. She clasped her hands tightly on her lap. What if Hiroko decided to leave her here until it was time to go home, the day after tomorrow? No one would know. Her father and Riichi were far away in Tokyo.

  She thought of them then, walking round the exhibition. A large, echoing stone-floored room, their footsteps reverberating beneath a high domed ceiling, faces bent over glassed table cases. Side by side, they would examine small drawings of warriors and court life and battles on ribbons of emaki scrolls. Her father would be happy at Riichi’s interest. Riichi would be flattered by his father’s attention.

  Slowly then her thoughts began gathering speed. Anything could happen to her here. Nobody would find her until it was too late. It was like a dungeon. Some people were forced to spend their lives in places like this, treated as animals. She knew about it. For not long before Riichi had told her of a case in the newspaper, he had read it out to Natsuko, line by line. About a man who kept his son in the garden shed, chained to a post, for six years. And nobody knew he was there. The picture in the paper showed the boy, all bent and ragged, blinking at the light. It had upset her for nights.

  Everything crumbled in her then. The dimness wove about in front of her, the dark solid outlines of shapes dissolving, reforming, and dissolving again. She pressed her hand over her eyes. Running to the door she screamed and kicked against it; shouting Hiroko’s name. Silence.

  Perhaps if she could reach the window and break it, she might squeeze through, if she manoeuvred her shoulders, if she kept her body flat. Crossing the few feet of space she began to climb, awkwardly, over the dark piled mass of things. Sometimes her feet made a solid find, other times they pushed down deep among hard objects that scratched her bare feet and ankles. The window was nearer, she could see the top of the fence outside, before it all gave way beneath her. She fell, rolling over on to the ground, the sacks, baskets spilling about her.

  Sobbing hard, no longer caring, she groped her way to the door. Oh God, she thought. Pleas
e God let me out.

  A shadow moved in the crack of light on the floor. Then the noise of the bolt. She stumbled out into evening light and sweet fresh air.

  It did not matter to her now, that it was Shojiro who had let her out. It was only Hiroko she could not have faced. Wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, she tasted salty tears and thin mucous blubbed down from her nose. He was standing in front of her, his slow face screwed up and anxious. In his hand he held her shoes, and he put them down before her. Then pulling the towel from his neck, he offered that to her also. For a moment she remembered the dream, how the towel had kept coming and coming, turning to rope. It was damp in her hand now, and warm still from his neck, as she dabbed at her face. The towel smelled strong and stale, quickly she gave it back. Silently then he took her arm, and guided her towards the main house.

  It was very hot. Sitting on the wooden seat in the bath, the deep water up about her chin wrapped around her like a blanket, comforting. She wished she could just sit here, enjoying the warmth, and relax. But her body and mind remained tense to the sounds of Shojiro outside.

  She could hear his small grunts and the peculiar drag of his feet, as he pushed more bamboo logs into the small furnace beneath the bath. Hiroko had said nothing when Shojiro took Natsuko back into the house except, ‘The bath is ready’. And that too with her back to Natsuko, washing Chinese cabbages in the sink. She did not speak either as she led the way, crossing the yard to a small, separate outhouse. Low in the wall was an open furnace to heat the water in the bath. Shojiro went up to a pile of logs and began pushing them into the fire, stoking up the furnace. Beside him the long, metal flue of the bath house breathed out a trail of black smoke.

  Inside the bathroom it was steamy and warm. The wooden-lined metal tub, sunk deep in the floor above the fire, filled with hot water, and smoked a damp wet cloud. Hiroko leaned across the bath, and slid open half of a small window. Immediately cool air and black smoke blew in. She made Natsuko strip and wash down on the tiles outside the bath, before getting in. Then, leaving her to soak, she returned to the kitchen.

  The hot water was comforting, but she did not like the soggy wooden tub. In one corner a soft fringe of splinters waved gently in the water, like weeds. Every so often smoke caught in her throat, making her cough, and then her head throbbed painfully again. She stood up, wanting to shut the window, but beneath it the floor of the bath was right over the fire, and scorching hot. She jumped back, her feet sore from the heat. Standing on the seat she tried leaning across to the window, but was not tall enough. The effort of straining made her head dizzy and she sat back on the seat again. For a moment everything went black about her. She knew she should get out, that she had had enough of the heat. But she still heard Shojiro, pushing wood into the furnace, banking it up so that the water in the tub would stay hot enough for everyone in the house. One by one they would all come here, to wash and soak. Natsuko was relieved she was first. She could not have sat like this knowing Shojiro had used the water before her. Not wanting then to leave its warm protection she waited, until the sounds outside stopped. For several moments there was silence. Standing then, she climbed out of the bath, reaching for the narrow strip of towel Hiroko had left. Folding it she rubbed it down each limb and over her body. But immediately wet vapour settled on her skin, making it damp again. In the bare cubicle adjoining the bath her pyjamas and cotton yukata hung. She pulled the clothes over her head, but they clung in awkward folds to her damp, hot flesh. She shut the door and ran quickly back to the house, not looking to see if Shojiro still stood there.

  They had drawn back the doors of the small room where the old woman slept, opening it up into the next matted space. A group of people sat around a low table, busy over bowls of buckwheat noodles in soup, their eyes upon the screen of a colour television, watching one of several daily samurai adventures. Because of their swashbuckling violence her mother objected to Natsuko watching these dramas. Here nobody minded, they just made room for her at the table. Hiroko silently placed a bowl of noodles in front of Natsuko. On the television a famous blind swordsman shuffled along the slope of a hill. Mist swirled eerily. The camera followed his straw sandaled feet, and the tap of his stick. The dark gate of a temple filled the screen. The blind swordsman tapped his stick, walking into the temple, getting smaller and further away. Mournful music played in the background. The camera moved from his rolling eyes to his stick, tapping amongst dry fallen leaves and the wet cobbles. Then the door of the gate slammed shut. The screen was in blackness. Music screamed out loud and stopped abruptly as the commercials began. A mug of overflowing beer suddenly filled the screen, then bright honky tonk music and pictures of people surfing, riding huge waves on the sea.

  Around the table, eyes of people away from the screen observed Natsuko. Everyone seemed to know her, although to her their faces were strange. They smiled, talking to her, asking questions as they slurped up noodles around the table. Natsuko stared into her bowl, unable to answer their questions. Tired of persuasion they left her alone and returned to the television screen. The last image of the commercial faded, and the drama started again. Now there was a group of bad monks, fat and muscular, with shaven heads. They were counting money from a box of gold coins. A candle flickered between them, running flaring shadows up the walls, twisting their faces into black splinters. The sound of their laughter filled the room.

  A door slid open, Shojiro came in. At the table the only space was opposite Natsuko. He walked over and sat down. Kneeling, Hiroko doled out soup and noodles with a longhandled ladle and chopsticks, from a bright patterned saucepan in the middle of the table. Shojiro kept his back to the television, his shoulder half blocking Natsuko’s view. On the screen it was midnight, the fat monks were walking through the deserted town. The camera looked down from a bird’s eye view on their wide straw hats, moving along the road. The only sound was their wooden clogs, clattering along. Shojiro lowered his head and ate quickly, picking up great bunches of noodles between his chopsticks, shovelling them into his mouth, sucking up noisily. On the screen the camera changed its bird’s-eye view of the straw hats and came down beside the monks. Shojiro bit through a mouthful of noodles. They dropped from in his mouth and swung limply over his chopsticks. His small eyes stared directly into her face, and she looked back to the screen at once. Now the bad monks were dragging a woman from a small house, there was a child with her, crying. Screams filled the darkness. The woman was being beaten, her naked back was slashed and raw. The child wept hysterically and the wind moaned loudly. Then through the torn door emerged the blind swordsman. Baddies surrounded him immediately, swords drawn. His eyes rolled and blinked and what appeared to be his stick was now revealed as a secret sword. He slashed and cut, bodies dropped before him, flesh sliced easily. He thrust his sword into a bad monk’s stomach, and the monk vomited blood. Looking quickly away Natsuko met Shojiro’s eyes again. He smiled. In his eyes was intimacy, as if they had shared things together. Upon the television slashed bodies writhed. In the space behind, Hiroko’s mother groaned softly from time to time. The music, the moaning and the slurping of noodles became suddenly unbearable. Natsuko stood up quickly, and went over to Hiroko.

  ‘I’m tired. I want to go to bed,’ she said in a rush.

  On the television the music was crashing about, the blind swordsman was getting ready to stab again.

  ‘Well, go up to bed then,’ said Hiroko, not taking her eyes from the screen.

  Natsuko slid open the main door of the house. Outside it was dark and silent. She knew she must not look anywhere, just keep her eyes on her feet, and walk quickly. She wished she could have asked for someone to come with her. Not looking at the dark clumps of trees or the prickly silhouette of the thatch she walked towards the workshop. She was free of the room behind, of Shojiro’s eyes, of the television, and the strange contorted faces about her. But she did not want to go to sleep, because of the dreams, because of all the thoughts and fears knotted up in her head.<
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  A large moth fluttered outside, against the netting of the open window. Its fanning shape, drumming softly was the first thing she saw as she woke. She was covered in sweat. There had been a hole in the ground, like a deep grave, and she was imprisoned in it, unable to get out. The room was not dark, there was a moon. Through the window she saw the soft white drift of clouds. Crickets purred above the constant croak of bullfrogs. Sitting up then she saw Hiroko’s bed empty, the quilts thrown back.

  From the other half of the room, behind the divider, came a soft sound, an animal nuzzling, an intake of breath, a movement. She held herself tense, prepared. Turning she saw first only the dividing paper door, drawn shut beside her quilts. Then, stencilled unevenly across the bottom, a lumpy shadow moved. An arm freed itself for a moment, then fell, lost again in the dark bank of shadow. It was Shojiro, asleep. She remembered when she came to bed, seeing his quilts laid neatly out near the stair shaft. Because of him they had divided the room, drawing the doors closed between them. Lying in bed Natsuko had waited, knowing he would come, determined to stay awake and alert the whole night. Unintentionally she had slept.

  The shadow moved again, slipping away beneath the bottom of the door, then swelling up to fill it again. A large chunk tore free. Briefly the shape of two heads formed.

  She pulled back until she was against the rough sanded wall, the cold scratchiness of it rubbing her shoulder. Kneeling cautiously up to the paper door she looked through the hole she had torn in it that afternoon.

  In the other side of the room moonlight was dim and indirect. Washing Hiroko had pinned out in the evening shrouded the window in pale luminous patches, hanging limp and still. There was no breeze. Then she saw Hiroko, the blue splodged pattern of her nightdress. She lay quite still, no sound or movement, as if she was dead, and Natsuko felt suddenly fearful for her. Then, something stirred. Shojiro pulled himself up on an elbow and leaned over Hiroko. Natsuko saw then that the buttons of Hiroko’s nightdress were open wide. From the window faint blue light spilt on to her bare flesh. Slowly Shojiro’s head came down. He placed his lips against her mouth. His hand crept over Hiroko and disappeared within the naked gape of the nightdress. His arm appeared as if cut off at the wrist, the hand plunged deep within Hiroko’s body. Then Hiroko lifted up her arms and folded them about him. For a moment Natsuko watched their bodies moving against each other. Then she drew back.