by Hiromi Goto
Issun-Boshi’s parents left, with tears of sorrow in their eyes, for the son they had lost. Miwa, who had been watching through a crack in the screen, felt her chest heave with hate.
That night, when Issun-Boshi had done with his wife, he lay snoring on his futon. Miwa crept softly to the family treasury and found the magical mallet. She softly slid back to where her husband lay, and swung, ichi, ni, san, Issun-Boshi shrinking shrinking, until he was the size of the tip of a finger. “Hey!” he squeaked. “Hey, what are you—” Miwa lifted her graceful foot and crushed him beneath her heel. All that was left was a tiny stain on an otherwise spotless tatami.
Funny thing, Murasaki, how these stories keep changing. But that’s the nature of all matter, I suppose. Can’t expect the words to come out the same each time my tongue moves to speak. If my tongue were cut from my face, I would surely grow another. No, it is the nature of matter to change, and I feel the change coming from deep within my bones. Time ripens like a fruit and I must hurry, hurry.
I am used to hearing this roaring in my ears, the whistling scritch of dust pitting the walls. If the wind should stop, would I miss it, I wonder. Would my mouth crinkle up and my body fall to dust? There are ages of silence and ages of roaring, but one more thing remains. When the words have run their course there comes a time of change. I cannot stay in this chair forever. “How was your day, Grandma?”
I start. Didn’t hear him come in, my, so late already.
“Kyō no kaze wa chotto hageshikatta yo. Chotto kotaeta ka na,” I say, waiting for his always, “Glad to hear it.” But he surprises me.
“I brought you something, Grandma. Thought you might like it.”
It is a mushroom. Bigger, than my two fists held together and rich with the scent of soil. But this mushroom, somewhere, somehow, two spores must have melded together, because there is a huge bulge on the main body of the stem, a two-headed mushroom with two possible umbrellas filled with gills of tiny spores. I hold the mushroom in my crack-lined palms and breathe in deep, the smell of growing.
“Utsukushii,” I sigh, look up to my daughter’s husband. “Arigatō.”
“Glad you like it,” he says and wanders down the hallway to the shower. When he is gone, I raise the mushroom to my mouth to take a giant bite. The flesh so firm, so juicy. I munch and munch.
Useless to waste time on sentimental memory. I may be an old fool, but stupidity is another matter. So important to remember, but say the words out loud. Don’t wallow in pools of yesterday, I say. Don’t drown in yesterday’s tears. The wind in Alberta is harsh, but he is also constant. The wind will wear away at soil, paint, skin, but he will never blow with guile.
There is a wind in Japan, called kama itachi. Scythe weasel.
We walked along the red dirt road, not even a breeze, between long rows of tea. Okāsan held my hand and I sang songs I learned at school.
“You will be good, child?”
“Hai, Okāsan, I will be very good.”
“You will work hard and listen to the elders and not ask silly questions?”
“Hai, Okāsan. I will work very hard and bring home lots of money so we can have nice things again and lots and lots of food.” Okāsan only held my hand tight and said nothing more. We walked down the road, the tea so green beside us. Cicadas thrummed and shrieked. Their cries were the only movement in the dust we raised with our feet.
Sudden sting/slash razor cutting across the backs of my legs I screamed. No sound, no whisper, nothing, but it returns whip-like through still air, even cicadas silent, and slashes across my chest, my kimono in tatters, the skin parted. Blood. So sudden and gone and I stood howling in the middle of the road, bleeding, Okāsan looking frightened holding me close. Searching with her eyes for someone, something, who cut me up, but there is nothing there. Nothing.
“What was it Okāsan? Who hurt me?” I sobbed, and clung to my solid mother.
“It was the kama itachi. An evil wind that moves with the speed of a weasel and cuts with the sting of a scythe.”
“But why, why did he hurt me? I wasn’t bad,” I said, tears drying in my mother’s kimono.
“He marked you, child. Naoe-chan, your life will be a difficult one. And you must always be strong. Come, we must leave this evil place.” Okāsan picked me up, even though I was too big to be carried, and hurried from that road. I tucked my thumb in my mouth, for there was no one there to see me. I looked back over Okāsan’s shoulder, and thought I saw something streak beneath the long dark rows of tea.
There are ages of silence and ages of roaring, but these too must come to a close. The full-bellied moon hangs low in the sky and I feel a stirring in my bones. In the hollows of my mouth. It is a time of change.
Ahhh, so easy to say, but another matter to open a door, step out, and close it behind me. Leaving what I know to explore what I don’t. That takes more than just a simple wish or a passing thought. Easier yet just to stay put in my chair of incubation. I never claimed to be brave. Che! This snivelling doesn’t become me, and the wind mocks my weakness. No. I cannot sit here forever. The prairie wind will dry me out, even as I sit, turning me into a living mummy. I’ll be trapped for eternity uttering hollow sounds, words without substance. I would rather disembowel my innards then stay a prisoner of my own choice. Ritual harakiri so beautiful in theory but not so pretty when intestines spill like giant worms out of the body. The stink of digested food turning into shit. What a silly way to die, and no one ever talks about who gets to clean up the mess. Not to mention the actual pain of slicing open your own body.
There are things I haven’t experienced yet. Moments of joy I haven’t allowed myself to live. I don’t want to die before I’ve ever fallen into my flesh or laughed myself silly. There are so many things I want to do and I’m ready to begin them now. Keiko and Murasaki need to grow without my noisy presence and I need to live outside the habit of my words. I go.
Of course, I will not leave empty-handed. There was a time when a person could travel with only a coat on her back and journey from place to place. Trade stories for a place to sleep, a bowl of rice or fish. But this time has passed and I can trade nothing for my stories now. I’ll just fetch Keiko’s purse, no, leave her Visa, she uses it so often, she’ll miss it, surely. I’ll take the MasterCard instead. And eighty dollars. She’ll think Shinji took it. What else? Ah, so hard to leave, my body so used to the form of the chair. Foolishness! I must leave this chair like a husk, leave like a newly formed cicada. A silk moth. Twenty years is long enough. Only a fool will howl forever. No, I must truly leave. Keiko will worry, I suppose, for all that she pretends otherwise. But Murasaki, Murasaki will linger with me forever.
I leave you a letter, Keiko. If you choose, you may understand.
You dismantle our bed, taking the screws out of the headboard and along the frame. The mattress and the box are leaning against the wall. We lift the mattress out together, then the box, the headboard and the pieces of the frame. We load them up into the back of a U-Haul trailer which we pull behind your car.
“What brought this on, anyway?” I ask, driving slowly.
“I don’t know. It just came to me suddenly. It was a—what do you call it? A brain wave!” you smile, pleased with your memory.
“Are you sure you can afford it? The bed’s still perfectly fine, you know.
“I’m sure. Aren’t you the one who says we should be more immediate? ‘That we shouldn’t let habit and complacency dictate the direction of our lives’?” you say, raising one eyebrow higher than the other.
“Che! Don’t mimic me.” I pull into the back alley behind the Salvation Army. Two women come out to help unload the bed and they thank us for our donation. We drive to Kensington to a futon shop. And I feel excitement tickling against my chest.
“What’s your biggest futon?” you ask, hands resting on your hips.
“That would be the Shōgun size!” a sales clerk says, rubbing his hands together.
“We’ll take it,” y
ou say, then turn to me. “What colour do you want?”
“Purple,” I breathe.
PART TWO
She bundled herself in the thickest coat she could find, wrapped one scarf around her neck and one around her head. Tied the ends beneath her chin. She opened the snap of the purse on the kitchen table and flipped through the wallet. Pulled the bills out and counted them once, twice, then pocketed some, returned the rest. She chose a credit card and peered carefully. It was much too dark to make out the lines and swirls of the signature, so she flicked the kitchen light on and the sudden glare made her squint. The bright light was as loud as sound in the quiet of a midnight kitchen. She looked upward, at the the ceiling, but there were no floorboard creaks so she sat at the table and practiced forging the signature on a paper towel. When she was finally satisfied, she tore the towel into shreds and burned them in the sink. Tucked the card into a deep pocket with the cash.
She turned to the fridge and opened the door, perusing the contents with her lips pursed, a finger tapping her cheek. She muttered as she chose a wedge of cheese, a pomegranate, pita bread, nasty tasteless thing but it was light and it would keep, an apple, a package of Burns weiners, did she have no pride? Ah, but travellers can’t be choosers, a Sunkist orange, was there nothing Japanese in the fridge at all? Not one single thing? And way at the back, behind pickled herring gone cloudy and mystery jars of no discernable origins, she found a tiny crock of salted seaweed. She snatched it up and slowly twisted the lid open, took a tentative sniff. Salt and sea. It was fine. She dipped a wrinkled pinkie into the black paste and sucked it from her finger in appreciative smacks. Smack! Smack! She twisted the lid back on and set the jar on the growing mound of food cluttered at her feet. A six-pack of beer. Much too heavy but it would go so nicely with the seaweed paste and the salted squid she’d saved up. She sighed. And added the beer to her stores. She looked down at the collection and shut the fridge door reluctantly.
There was enough food to be heavy, but not enough to last. She would have to hitch a ride as often as she could. She reached into her monpe pocket and took out a neatly folded furoshiki. She shook it out with a snap of her wrist so that the square piece of cloth was flat on the floor. Arranged the food on top of the furoshiki, distributing the weight evenly, then tied two diagonal corners in the center of the square. Tied the remaining two corners over top of the first knot. The sea paste she kept in her pocket with the money and salted squid. She hefted the weight of the furoshiki and glanced around the kitchen. Turned off the light. Black. Stood still in the darkness until her eyes adjusted, a bent and huddled figure.
As she walked down the hall, she stretched out brittle fingers to stroke the chair she had sat in for more years than she could hold in the cup of her hands. The straight wooden back, no cushion or armrests for comfort. She was drawn to it through force of habit, drawn by the patterns in her body. Was tempted to sit once more, inside the soft curve of the seat that her bony buttocks had carved over two decades, but no! The chair had lent her stability in the midst of prairie dust and wind, but she could easily let it become her prison. She set her lips. Rubbed a hand over her eyes and brow, her back bent, her bundle of food at her feet. She whispered ja ne, with something close to loss or memory. The old woman stroked the back of the chair with a steady hand, then picked up her furoshiki. Opened the door.
The wind almost snatched the door from her hand in a blast of ice and dust, but she hung on tightly. Couldn’t let the door slam before she even had a chance to take one step outside. Held tight, walked over the threshold into the swirl of snow outside. She closed the door behind her.
NAOE
Snow! It would have to snow the night I choose to leave. Ha! Blow on, blow on, Woman of the Snow. Yuki-Onna. Funny how I hated the wind so, when I was sheltered from it. We are sisters, you and I, and your cool breath upon my cheeks will comfort me. Ahhh, this air is sweet and the crystals of ice in my hair shiver like tiny cymbals. It is good to leave. Good to leave that house of dusty words. Too easy to sit and talk and talk when I can walk and talk instead. Ah, fool. March on.
Gawa gawa gawa gawa
Oto tatete
Are are morino mukōkara
Soro soro detekuru hikōsen.
But wait. I should. I want to see before I leave this place forever. The fushigi smell where the mushrooms are growing. Here, so near. I would like to dip my fingers in the moist soil where they ripen in the dark. Turn back, woman, turn back. There are no pillars of salt in my culture. I will see before I leave. Mattaku! This furoshiki is going to get heavy. It’s heavy enough already, no telling how heavy it’ll be when I’ve walked a league or two, however far that may be. I’ll find someone to give me a ride, once I’m on the highway.
Yuki-Onna. Woman of the Snow. Locked in your story of beauty and death. Let me release you. Press your icy lips to mine, there, and death will flee from my mouth of fresh ginger. I am old, but I’m still full of brine and sake. There, much better, I say and what? Your cheeks become rosy. Here, sit a while, enough of that hovering on wind. A body could get dizzy, watching you whisk around so. The snow is soft and you must be tired, all those years trapped in a story not of your creation. Are you thirsty? I have beer. It’ll ease your thirst and thicken your blood. No? Why I’ve just the thing for a pale woman like you. Here, take. Why it’s a pomegranate, child. No, of course you’ve never seen one, they would never grow in the snow. Beneath the leather skin, there are droplets of ruby so sweet you’ll never taste the bitter dust of death again. Let me break it in half. Take them, child. Sink your teeth into the fruit. Suck. Yes, I know. You stay and rest, but I must be going to see some mushrooms.
So much snow blowing, I really can’t see, but I must be getting closer. I can smell the sour compost. It hangs like a ripe wet cloth above the compost barn. I like this sound, this squeak squeak of snow beneath my boots. Everything filled with sound and story. Why a body could get lost with all this noise, but the nose never lies. Sniff. Sniff. Actually, you can taste with your nose if you’re really sensitive. Like a dog, or maybe a snake. No, that’s not quite right. A snake tastes smells on his tongue? Or he smells tongues on his taste. Or smells taste on his tongue—but I babble and scrabble—snakes are dreaming of sun-warmed rocks and dogs are twitching their toes in rabbit delight, but this old woman must walk!
She walked with an easy pace, face thrust into the bite of wind, hands clasped behind her back, holding her bundle of supplies. She didn’t stop at the compost barn, but trudged on farther to the second building. Stood outside a small door for a moment, then opened it. She stepped inside.
And bathed in a blanket of soil and moist. She stood still in the darkness, blinking in wonder. Surprised when she felt a warm wetness trickling down her cheeks. Pulled the gloves off her hands with clumsy fingers and reached to touch her face. When she held her fingers before her eyes, they glowed with phosphorescent beauty. She smiled. The old woman could smell the lingering brown aroma of coffee and the under-smell of formaldehyde. The cakey yeasty sugar smell of old Twinkie wrappers. So black, so dark, she could only see with her nose, with the surface of her senses. She felt a soft nudging at her boots, and felt a warm hump at her feet. Heard a blink of eyes. The fast thump thump thump of tail beating the floor. She crouched down to let the dog smell her hands, to lick her cheek and brow. The woman scratched tender dog ears and belly, then reached inside her pocket to tear off some dried squid legs. She ran her hands along the wall until she found an open doorway and left the coffee room to the sounds of jaws chewing a welcome midnight snack.
The hallway was huge, like the wet cavern of a whale. Her eyes adjusted slowly, and she could only see varying shades of black. Could feel the empty space around her. Could almost hear the fungus hum of mushrooms growing behind closed doors. The density of moisture clung heavily to her clothes. It was much warmer than the house she had lived in, and she unbuttoned her heavy coat and shrugged it off. Unwrapped her scarves and dropped them. Tugged her sweater
over her head and pulled down her polyester monpe with both thumbs, taking her panties down with them, and stepped out of her winter boots, socks still inside. She stood, shoulders slightly stooped, arms dangling, her pelvis thrust forward in weak posture. She looked like an aged shrimp in silent contemplation. But for the first time in decades, moisture filtered into her body. Moisture rich with peat moss and fungal breath. Slowly seeping into parchment, osmosis of skin and hair. The blanket wet of humidity enclosing her tiny figure. Her sallow cheeks shone a little more roundly and the loose skin where she once had breasts began to rise like bread, like mantō. Her skin, so dry, slowly filled, cell by cell, like a starving plant, the mushroom moisture filling her hollow body. The wet tinkling into her brittleness. Blood stirring, restless. Like silk threads, they wound through her. Old chicken arms grew longer, filling with supple strength, her buttocks curving, swelling, with flesh and longing. She could hear her body filling, the rippling murmur of muscles and bones, squeak of hair growing long and smooth, long enough to sweep the soft skin of her back. Her yellow parchment skin growing taut, glowing coolly like newborn silkworms. She ran her palms from her collarbones over breasts belly hips thighs. Laughed aloud in wonder. Stood tall and straight and stretched on her toes, flung her hands skyward.
She strode down the dim hallway, the floor shaking beneath her feet. The buckets on hooks against the walls clattered with each step she took and some fell, rolled under her feet to be squashed like Styrofoam cups. She breathed in great draughts and followed the scent ripe with fungal ecstasy. She stood before a door marked Number 9. Stretched out a hand and pushed it inward on noiseless hinges. Heard the timeless murmur of mushrooms hush. She had to bend low, tuck her head into her chest and enter sideways to fit her giant body through the frame of the door. And finally she stood among them.