The Gossamer Fly

by Meira Chand

  But now she stood in the study, alone. It was cool, as always in Summer, the windows well guarded by close growing trees. A silent green dimness spread over everything. The room appeared larger than it was, and filled by something solid. She knew the stillness was packed in tight here. And she was sure then, this was where it was generated, oozing out silently, coating the house.

  The armoured suits sat just as always, facing her, side by side. Their bodies held those square human shapes that had died and been absorbed in them. She tried to think of the warriors who might once have worn the armour, trudging hills, waving swords and shouting fiercely. But in her mind walked only the empty armour, the bodies inside dissolved, sucked into the iron and lacings. And suddenly she knew, all the stillness in the house bred there, in the very centre of those hollow bodies, flowing out through the holes oftheir eyes and mouths. She felt the stillness of death then, coming towards her, entering at the base of her belly, filling her flesh, her veins, until her body was packed tight with it and beat in terror. She stood quite still, unable to move, feeling it claim her entirely.

  Upstairs the banging of doors seemed distant. Hiroko’s voice screamed her name again and again. Above the study her feet stomped around Natsuko’s bedroom, throwing open the cupboards, flushing out each hiding place. Soon she would stamp down here, to the study.

  She realized then, there was nowhere really in the room to hide. Only in her mind did it possess such secrecy. In reality each thing in the room was bare of depth or closeted space. The bookcases were glassed, flat up against the walls, beneath the desk space was wide and open to view, the sofa straddled freely the middle of the room. There was only one corner, only one dark hiding place. Behind the low screen of calligraphy, standing at an angle across a corner, right behind the armour.

  Putting her hand on the doorknob she prepared to leave the room, to run. But the footsteps were coming now, down the stairs. They would soon advance up the corridor towards the study. There was nothing now she could do. Nothing. Each way was certain death. Each way the blood within her would stop, and her mind burst into pieces smaller than dust. Letting go of the doorknob she turned back, and walked deeper into the room, closing her eyes, the palms of her hands clammy with sweat.

  When she began to breathe again she purposefully took small shallow breaths. Her lungs must not fill too much with the air of this corner. She crouched down behind the screen, as low as she could, head nearly touching her knees, hands still over her eyes. Along the skirting of the wall long settled dust gathered in furry lumps, like mould. Beside her the screen was backed by old temple records, inventories of incense and offerings, yellowed and stained by age. Just once she looked up and saw the domes of the helmets, knobbled by rows of iron warts, the shoulders hunched and flapped, crusty with metal, hovering darkly above the screen. She was near enough to reach out and touch, near enough to see the plaited texture of the lacing, the frayed chinstraps, the hog-hair moustache, the black iron nose. The armour loomed above her, dark and cold. She pressed her head to her knees again, unable to do anything but breathe the stale air, filled by the mustiness of ancient things. The stillness here was dry as old bone. She waited, her body tense, for the end of all things.

  Along the skirting the dust moved, lifting slightly as Hiroko flung open the study door. Her footsteps paused, walked into the room, hesitated. Natsuko could see her now, through the slim gap where the screen met the wall. She marched boldly up to the window and swished back first one floor-length curtain and then the other. She wore only a brief pink nylon underslip, as she had come down from the bathroom, naked beneath it, too suddenly enraged to pull anything on. Natsuko saw the anger in her, pumping her chest up and down, gleaming hard behind her eyes, settling in a damp line on her upper lip and the moistness of her neck. Through the silky sheen of the petticoat her thighs were hard and tense. Natsuko squeezed herself lower, holding her breath, waiting for the moment of discovery, when her life would cease.

  Hiroko’s eyes settled on the screen, but before she could turn towards it, there was the sound of the study door opening, then shutting softly. Silence. Natsuko could see Hiroko, standing very still, staring intently in front of her. Craning her neck around the screen, Natsuko saw that Riichi had entered the room.

  ‘Natsuko isn’t here. She must have run out,’ Riichi said.

  ‘You’re home early.’ For a moment Hiroko paused.

  ‘What is it? What do you want?’ She stood quite still, shoulders drawn back, head tilted to one side, hips up against the sofa back.

  Natsuko watched Riichi move towards Hiroko, until he stood close to her, only a narrow gap parting their bodies. He was taller than Hiroko, her head came level with his ear as she stood looking up at him, face thrown back. Then something stirred beneath her skin, altering slightly the shape of her eyes and mouth. Slowly, she smiled and breathed out a low note of surprise.

  Riichi raised his arm then, until his hand hovered above Hiroko’s bare shoulder. Natsuko saw the tremble of his fingers as he touched Hiroko’s bare flesh. His face turned a little then and Natsuko saw the strangeness, the queer hot glaze to his eyes. She knew his mouth must be dry and his eyes jerk disconnectedly, while words dried flat upon his tongue. Suddenly, roughly, he pushed the thin satin straps off Hiroko’s shoulders, pulling the slip to her waist. She stood before him naked, and a shudder passed through him. He drew back a little, standing quite still, hands dropped to his side. Natsuko watched a trickle of sweat run behind his ear, through the bristles of his short-cropped hair, down his neck, into his collar. Under the thin shirt she saw the movement of his muscles and dark, wet areas of sweat.

  The moments stilled about them. She did not know how long they waited, standing there like that, looking at each other. Only the sound of the clock sliced through to the very centre, knocking impatiently in the silence, rattling in and out of her brain.

  Then Hiroko began to laugh silently, her mouth spreading open, her shoulders shaking gently. Reaching up she pinched the side of Riichi’s face.

  ‘Come then,’ she said softly. ‘You have much to learn if you want to be your father’s son.’ She took his face between her hands, and pulled it slowly down towards her.

  Natsuko buried her face then, down against her knees, not wanting to look or hear any more. The blood thundered in her ears, swirling in behind her eyes, loud as a waterfall. She wished for the floor to melt and absorb her, she wanted to shrink to the size of an ant, to crawl away, to lie forgotten in the cracks of the skirting. So that she might be blind and safe, so that she might see nothing else. For there was no room now in her mind for anything more. It would burst and split open, like the shell of a nut upon its soft kernel, if forced to a further dimension. About her the room was silent. In her swollen head the ticking clock knocked against her skull, pushing in, pushing out, pushing in, pushing out, drilling small holes in the bone. And faintly, curling in from outside, persistent, hypnotic, came the beat of the drum from the shrine up the hill and the Summer Festival.

  When slowly she raised her head and looked again, the room seemed empty. The bare sofa back faced her. For a moment she thought they had gone. Her body was soaked in sweat, her clothes clung to her skin. She sat up and looked again.

  First it was the limp, untidy pile of clothing she saw. The soft pink slip, a bit of crumpled nothing, the boards of the floor staring through the empty loops of its satin straps, and Riichi’s white shirt. Then, mirrored clearly in the glass of the bookcase she saw them, spread upon the wide seat of the sofa.

  Against the pale green cushions she saw reflected in the glass a mound of flesh, an untidy and naked jumble of moving limbs. And upon the bare planes of thigh and back broke the vivid titles and binding of books. Edo Painting, Traditional Domestic Architecture, Jomon Pottery, The Art of the Japanese Screen. The words seemed to sway with the moving heap of flesh.

  The room was filled with murmured breathing. Natsuko knew now that the stillness had reached out at last, drainin
g life from her forever. Every thing kept within her exploded at last.

  ‘No. No. No.’ She pushed out blindly, screaming out the words.

  The suits of armour fell about her then, crashing and clattering, parting as it fell. The helmet knocked hard against her ear, the iron warts touched her cheek. The flaps and plates, the clawlike hands and decorated leg guards fell upon her and rolled away. She felt the cold weight of metal heaped upon her. The screen lay flattened before her, wide rents opened up in its smooth brushed ink and paper. She stood up, pushing everything off her. The iron heads rolled across the floor, separating from their helmets. The black masks fell away, the holes of their eyes and mouths stared blankly up at Natsuko, filled with the pile of a beige rug.

  Looking back from the door, she saw Hiroko and Riichi, their naked shoulders protruding above the back of the sofa, confusion and alarm on their faces. She ran then, holding her hands over her ears.

  12

  Her mother had warned her not to go into tall grass in Summer, because of snakes. But she was not afraid. There was nothing she was afraid of now. Her mind was clear. She knew exactly what she must do. It was the only way. And afterwards everything would start from a fresh point in time, there would be no residue to mould the future. It would be a new beginning. The pictures in her mind would all be dead.

  In the winter once, she had come here, climbing down the steep drop in front of the house, into the tall yellow pampas grass. She had seen a snake hole then, a round black opening tunnelling down into the earth. She had thought of the sluggish, sleeping snakes, coiled deep in the soil, and ran quickly home. Now it seemed a trivial worry. She knew nothing like that would ever touch her. A muddy coloured lizard ran over her foot, a dark oiled stripe down its back. Beside her ants laboriously scaled long blades of grass, a swarm of dragon-flies hovered above, sun reflecting on the thin membrane of their wings. The grass reached higher than Natsuko’s head. Twisting among it was a carpet of large leaved convolvulus, great spears of golden rod and pampas grass clumped thickly together. Crouched down deep it was hot and humid. There was a close, sweet smell around her, alive with rustles, mites and mosquitoes. Her arms and legs were all bitten and red, streaked from scratching. Her whole body itched unbearably.

  From the shrine the drum was beating up a final frenzy. Then it stopped abruptly. For a moment the sudden silence was startling. Then, slowly the quietness regained shape, and flowed gently between the clouds and grass. Soon, as they did each year in the Summer Festival, a group of young men would bring out the mikoski, the portable shrine, carrying it high on their shoulders, running with it through the local streets.

  Standing amongst the tall blades of pampas grass Natsuko kept her eyes fixed upon the house. It stood upright and stiff, exposed to view, staring out at the bay, dark paint on the windows and guttering peeling. She stood for a long time, waiting. A ladybird settled on her hand and walked the length of her arm. Her body was drenched with sweat, inflamed with the constant irritation. But at last Riichi came out, wheeling his bicycle, and disappeared down the hill towards the town. She stood up then, knowing the time had come. Behind her the sky and sea were pale, polished smooth as silver.

  Quietly then, she went into the house, watching with each step, checking the silence and emptiness. But there was no sign of Hiroko, only stillness everywhere. Coming into the hallway she saw the sun, pushing through panels of stained glass by the front door. A wide coloured ray streamed from it. Caught within it dust sifted about, alive. But she was not afraid.

  When she heard Hiroko moving about upstairs, she walked forward calmly. Keeping her back to the wall she crept softly up and along the passage. Hiroko was in her parents’ room, the door ajar. She was tidying out a cupboard, kneeling, surrounded by shirts and underwear. Gently, Natsuko pulled the door shut.

  At the top of the stairs once more, she looked down into the hallway. It was strange how she no longer felt afraid, she kept thinking about it. It was as if she had stepped outside herself. She was divorced from what her hands were doing, just an observer, watching the motions of her body. Under her hand the rail was warm. Her palm was too moist to run along it and stuck to the wood. Slowly, she walked downstairs. All the time in her mind she was thinking of what there was to do, going through it again and again, so that there should be no mistake. On the last step of the stairs she stopped abruptly. For suddenly now, she no longer remembered a reason for what she was doing. There was just certain knowledge that it must be done. Nothing was more important. In the hallway the band of sunlight had stretched to swallow the long knotted fringe of a rug.

  Walking purposefully, she went into the study, straight up to the fallen armour there, and looked at it anew. It was still in pieces on the floor, but arranged now in an orderly pile by Hiroko. Severed limbs were stacked in a group, the faces lay neatly, side by side. The masks stared up at Natsuko from the carpet, stripped of menace.

  But looking at them then, remembering, it seemed the masks reared up in one last eerie effort to grab her. She backed away then, feeling them reaching beyond her, up to the top of the house, pulling it down upon her, wrapping it tighter and tighter, until she could not breathe, until she was sure she was suffocating, her brains and bones crushed by the pressure. Into her mind flashed the spider bush in Hiroko’s home, the bodies of ants marooned in gauze. She remembered the dry, hollow thorax of the moth, bound and sucked empty, pinioned forever within the web.

  In her mind she tore at the stillness, determined it should never get her. Rushing into Hiroko’s room, she dragged the heavy quilts from the cupboard into the middle of the floor: then the clothes, the blouses and underwear, and the green skirt on the hanger. Lastly she picked up the bits of shredded blouse, still lying as she had left them on the floor, and sprinkled them over the top of the pile. Her heart pumped up and down in her chest. It was still not enough. She rushed back into the kitchen, pulling out the drawer just under the sink. She knew what she wanted, but her fingers fumbled stupidly, unable to grasp the big knife. Holding it firmly she ran back into Hiroko’s room. There she slashed again and again through the pile on the floor. The soft cotton innards of the quilt burst through the skin of its cover. The green skirt ripped, and stabbed holes were left in the pages of the account book. She turned to the window and with sweeping strokes slashed the curtains also for good measure.

  And then, slowly, her heart still jumping up and down wildly from her chest to her head, she went back to the study. Standing as far away as she could, bending forwards, stretching out with her arm, she pulled the knife up and down through the armour, again and again. Scratches ran over the metal, severing in places the red and blue lacings. She hacked off bits of beard and moustache and they fell, noiselessly, through the holes of the eyes, onto the carpet beneath. When she was finished she threw the knife down on top of it all and stood for a moment, breathing hard.

  The creak of floorboards above her head made her start. Then the flip-flapping of Hiroko’s slippers sounded along the upstairs passage, coming towards the stairs.

  In the hallway the coloured ray of light had devoured a little more of the rug. Natsuko looked back towards the study, trying to remember why she had done all she had. But in her mind was only a sureness that something ugly, old and hated was gone for ever.

  There was nothing left to do. She closed the front door behind her with a soft, blunt click, and walked towards the gate.

  From the corner of the road she looked up the hill and saw them, a swaying, noisey mass, coming down towards her. The men wore navy and white yukata, the thin cotton garment open upon their bare chests. They staggered beneath the weight of the mikoshi, chanting hypnotically to the beat of a small drum. Suddenly they were there before her, a tumult of noise, wet sweaty bodies, a tangle of muscle and leg. She saw their faces, their loose open mouths spilling out rhythmic words. Their ecstasy filled her, throbbing in her chest.

  Tilting and rocking upon their shoulders was the tiered black and gold mikosh
i shrine. It bumped majestically above them all, at its peak a brilliant gold phoenix, at its centre a secret inner shrine. Behind its shuttered gold doors was a silent black cube of emptiness, deaf to the clamour and noise.

  They surrounded and passed her, drawing her into their frenzy. The chanting, bouncing mass of men, the shrine, and dancing women and children closed about her, pulling her on. Her mind was blank and empty. The feelings and pictures were gone.

  Once she looked over her shoulder and saw, just visible between the fir trees, the small jerking figure of Hiroko. A white smear of blouse picked her out. She was shading her eyes, looking towards the road. Suddenly she turned, running to the gate and down the steps, and Natsuko knew she had been spotted. Hiroko was at the corner now, turning out on to the hill, beginning to give chase. But it all seemed distant, another landscape. And nothing to do with her.

  She turned back to the Summer Festival, and followed after the crowd. Around her the colours of the hill, the sea and the sky foamed up emerald, lime, cobalt and white, stretching before her as far as she could see. And above it all hovered the phoenix, serene above the bouncing shrine, guarding the inner cube of stillness, rocking forever beyond her reach.

  ALSO BY MEIRA CHAND

  THE BONSAI TREE

  ISBN: 978-981-4828-23-9

  Jun Nagai brings his beautiful, intelligent English wife Kate Scott back to Japan after a whirlwind romance. A marriage his powerful and complex mother Itsuko naturally disapproves. While Jun is pulled between the two cultures, owing loyalty to both, Kate is thrown into an unfamiliar world. Stripped of all romantic illusions, she struggles to retain her individuality in a world where her role of a wife lies within strict social constructs.