Chorus of Mushrooms

by Hiromi Goto

  I can’t believe my eyes! He tosses a squished almost flat package of Mild Sevens! Do yu koto daro? I never believed in fate, so why should he present himself now, I wonder. And I am intrigued.

  “Were you in Japan quite recently?” I ask.

  “Yup.”

  “Was it nice?” Knowing that he just came from there made my heart twist with something I couldn’t name. “I suppose your eyes would see it so differently. My Japanese eyes are at the back of my head, and they can only see backwards. My Japanese eyes are twenty years dimmed and I’m no fool. Who was that silly girl? Always clicking her heels, click click click, and wringing her hands so. Everyone knows that home is long gone and wishing won’t make it otherwise. I was home only until I was five years old. I’ve been gone ever since. But tell me what you saw with your eyes. I am not so realistic that I can’t listen with an eager ear.”

  “I dunno what I kin tell ya. I spint most my time roamin’ the countryside, stayin’ in ryokans ‘n minshukus. People’re kind in the country, not so hustle ‘n bustle like Tokyo or Osaka. Little kids in ther school uniforms ‘n little yellow packsacks would follow me ‘roun ‘n giggle and call me ‘Gaijin! Gaijin!’ but not’in any sorta mean way, but kinda like ther jokin’ ‘n real happy ‘n I didn’t mind atall. But I wuz ther thru the summer as well, ‘n did poorly in the heat. T’aint the heat that gits ta ya, mind ya, but that humidity all pourin’ down my back ‘n face ‘n my face turnin’ all red. My face wuz all red all summer ‘n on accounta my red face ‘n my big nose, well those kids’re startin’ ta call me ‘Tengu! Tengu!’ Tooka good look in the mirror when I got home ‘n sher enuff, I’m the spittin’ image of the tengu I saw the uther night on the Mukashi banashi program fer kids ‘n I laughed out loud.”

  “Ara ma ha! ha! Pittari janai no! That’s what I will call you too. Even though you are not so red in the face, but it suits you perfectly, Mr. Tengu.”

  “Please, no need fer fermalities! Jist call me Tengu.”

  “Do you speak some Japanese? Are you, perhaps, a scholar?”

  “Sher enuff. I reckon ya’ve a bit a sight if ya kin figger that out by jist lookin’ at me ‘n talkin’. Sher, I speak a bit Japanese, sukōshi dake, ya know. I wasn’t in Japan fer strickly pleasure, tho my studies’re a pleasure in thimselves, but that’s anuther matter ultogether.”

  “Tell me of your studies. I wanted to be a scholar once, but I decided to be an old woman when I grew up. You can channel your life in several directions, but I wanted to focus on one thing only. And do it very well. I’m the best old woman you’re going to find for many years to come!”

  “Yer aint kiddin’! Yer so good at being an old woman, never even noticed it. Not many people kin do that, I reckon. I ain’t so focussed as all that ‘n bin dabblin’ my fingers in a coupla pies.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, whut?”

  “Whut- What were you studying with so much pleasure in Japan?”

  “Oh, I wuz doin’ a comparitiv study on the origins ‘n developminta Japanese enka ‘n if ther any parallels with the developminta country ‘n western in North America.”

  “Ehhhh. I never would have thought to make that connection. That’s an interesting notion.”

  “Thank ya kindly. ‘N whut did ya have in that ther sack, anyways?”

  “Beer?”

  “Sher, don’t mind if I do. By the ways, whut wer ya wantin’ me ta call ya?”

  “Mmmmm. Sō da ne. Call me Purple.”

  “Purple, huh? Well it suits a funny little thing like ya, no disrespect intended ya kin have anuther smoke if ya want.”

  “Yes, thank you. They taste so natsukashii, after twenty dry years of prairie dust.”

  “I reckon anythin’d taste natsukashii after twenty years. Jist help yerself to my smokes, all ya want, I don’t mind atall.”

  “You’re a good person, Tengu. And it’s nice to meet you after all this time. Kanpai!”

  “Kanpai!” Tengu says, and clangs his beer can against mine. We drink and it warms our bellies. Tengu’s face begins to turn a lovely shade of red.

  “Yer welcome ta stay on as long as ya like. I don’t reckon I’ve ever picked up an interestin’ hitch-hiker as ya, not that yer ixackly hitchin’ but I wouldn’t mind ya stayin’ on. Gits a mite borin’ drivin’ by yerself in the snow, don’t know ‘bout walkin’.

  Can ya drive a stick?”

  “Sher.”

  “I think this is gonna be fun! Ya know?”

  “Thank you, Tengu. I like you very much and I’m very much ready for fun. Do you want some dried squid?”

  “Sher!”

  The chew champ craw of dried salted squid and good company to share it with. I’m content. There was a time when a body couldn’t dare hitch a ride with a stranger wearing a battered straw cowboy hat all bent and finger-creased. Maybe a hundred years ago. Maybe tomorrow. But today, today it is fine. Listen, listen, how the snow scrapes across the windshield, the surface of the truck. Fubuki, I guess. So dense, so thick we leave eddies behind and solitary trucks that pass before, why, the headlights scatter across facets of snow and reflect the brightness skyward. Imagine! I’ve been picked up by a Tengu who smokes Mild Seven cigarettes and is a cowboy music scholar! Yes, today is fine, indeed. So nice to feel light in soul, in mind and nothing to mar my pleasure. Having the space to choose my own companions. I can’t think of a finer place to be than inside the warm and smoky cab of a pick-up truck. Horse sweet smell of sweat and hay. Drinking beer with a new-found friend. Funny how it takes twenty long years to take one step outside, then, you manage to take more steps than you ever have in your life. That all you have to do is move your body from one place to another and everything around you changes so much, you have to grow new eyes, new ears. To see and hear. You have to grow a new mouth. I’m not too old to change. I leave Murasaki behind, but she must shape her own location. And our stories entwine and loop around and this will never change. She lingers here, with me, even now.

  (Naoe: Murasaki?

  Murasaki: Yes, Obāchan?

  Naoe: I just wanted to hear your thoughts.

  Murasaki: Nice. Obāchan, are you fine?

  Naoe: Yes, Murasaki. There is beer in my belly and good conversation lingers in my ears. I have met a friend and my toes are warm.

  Murasaki: I’m glad, Obāchan.

  Naoe: Thank you.)

  “Yer quite the one fer mutterin’ to yerself tho I sher shouldn’t talk, when I bin drivin’ on my own fer a whiles, I kin really chat up a storm with no one but myself, but yer talkin’ ta someone else completely weren’t ya?”

  “Yes, I talk with my mago, my granddaughter. Though ‘talk’ might not be the way to describe what we do. We share with each other, even when our bodies are far apart.”

  “Ya some kinda psychic or telepath or I dunno, one a those or ya jist kinda talkin’ metuphorickly?”

  “Maybe a little of everything?”

  “Sher. Sher. There’d be alot more stranger things in this world’n that ‘n I kinda wish I could do that too, wouldn’t mind chattin’ with my ma now ‘n then but if it goes both ways, I s’ppose she’d start peerin’ into my head more’n I liked, that’s jist the type of gal she is, more power to her, but I s’ppose I like ta keep my thoughts to myself ‘til I bother ta spill ‘em outta my mouth, ya know?”

  “Yes, I do know. I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I think I’m gittin’ a tad sleepy, not ‘cause of present company, jist bin drivin’ fer a good solid stretch ‘n that beer right tuckered me out. Don’t mind me yawnin’ ‘cause it ain’t ‘cause yer borin’ me.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Tengu. I’m fine. I think I’m finer than I’ve ever been in my life. Why don’t I tell you a story to keep you awake. That is, if you like that sort of thing.”

  “I’d love it,” he says, and his smile is beautiful.

  Mukāshi, mukāshi, ōmukashi . . .

  Deep, deep in the mountain forest, there lived a yamanba who l
ived by herself in a small house of her own making. Being a mountain woman, she was very very strong and had thick arms and legs like the root of the daikon. She lived quietly, tending her small garden where she planted burdock and satoimo during the day, and at night, she lingered by the fire in the irori, sipping from a jug of sake and reading from her books. She did not care for the company of humans, because they were small and bothersome. She just watched the birds in the trees and picked mushrooms in the forest. Her life with herself was complete and she felt little need ever to change it.

  One day, the yamanba strayed farther from her mountain home than she usually cared to travel. Trees swayed as she passed, her feet shook the ground beneath her. But despite her giant size, she walked carefully. Careful not to tred on the things smaller than herself. The giant woman was looking for someone to talk to. Endless seasons had passed since she had left her mountain home, and the books she read were starting to crumble to dust. There was change in the air, she had smelled it for quite some time, but had chosen not to heed it.

  As she came down the mountain, she saw that the trees were sickly. That there wasn’t a hum of insect chatter, and the brooks were sluggish and choked. The stench in her nose brought bile to her throat, and she blinked back the salt in her eyes. Wherever she looked, there was only the silence of dead and dying things. The earth was too beaten to weep. The yamanba saw something churn at her feet, and she crouched low and peered closely. It was a maggot.

  “Little Maggot, tell me what has happened to the land?”

  “Elder Sister, you are late. Late to come down from your mountain.”

  “Where are the green things, the water and the breeze?”

  “They are gone away, away. I don’t know why. My brothers and sisters are eating their bones. When there is nothing more to eat, we will go away too.”

  “Tell me, Little Maggot, where are my sisters? Where have the other mountain women gone to so that I may join them?”

  “We ate their bones yesterday. We ate them yesterday. And we will eat you tomorrow. That is the way of maggots.”

  “Yes, that is the way of maggots, but it is not for me to be eaten tomorrow. Little Friend, eat a little less today, so you do not eat me tomorrow.”

  “Why do you want to stay when your sisters have gone away? You will be lonely with no words to hear, no ears to speak your sounds to.”

  “I am a yamanba and I am strong. I will speak my words aloud and shape the earth again. If you choose to listen, I will tell you stories.”

  “What have you to say that we would care to hear? We churn in the bones of the dead. What have we to do with living things?”

  “Are you not one of the living as well?” the yamanba asked softly.

  “Yes,” the maggot said, after some thought. “I guess we are.”

  “If you eat of the dead, the conclusion of the cycle is your death. That is all that remains.”

  “The marrow we eat is dry and bitter, but we do not wish to die. Yet.”

  “Then come,” the yamanba beckoned. She lay upon the silent ground and tilted back her head. Opened wide her great mouth, and the maggots churned in the soil around her. They squirmed and squiggled on to her body, covering her in their glowing whiteness. An undulating blanket. They trickled and streamed into her mouth, down, down her throat. And more and more and so many more, they moiled out of the dying earth. The maggots filed on and on, so many that she couldn’t possibly hold them all, but still she let them enter. When the last one flipped over the edge of her lip, she heaved a great sigh and closed her mouth. Swallowed. She heard the whispering clamour of millions of tiny voices shouting from her belly.

  “Hurry! Hurry! There is no room inside here. We are tender and the walls of your stomach scrape us so. We want to leave! Please, hurry, hurry,” the maggots cried, wriggling in their discomfort. The yamanba rose to her feet, tottering a little with the added weight. Stood tall upon the earth. Her feet planted like stone, she swung her great breasts out of her samui and clenched two fists around them. She milked her breasts with great white spurts and a steady stream of maggots squirted from her nipples. When the maggots touched the earth, they squirmed, swelled, flipped about at her feet. Their bodies grew longer and taller and limbs began to form. Fingers, hands, calves and feet. Some were tall and slender while others stayed plump and soft. They grew and clamoured around her. In wonder, they called her mother. When the yamanba squeezed the last maggots from her breasts, there were millions of soft-skinned people around her.

  “You are weak, but soon your skin will bake to lovely shades of brown and the sun will not bother you so. Some will never brown like your hardy companions, so you must take care each other. Remember you were maggots. If you do not take care, you will fall back into the habit of eating the dead.”

  The yamanba was weary, but she had to care for her maggot children. She turned to the stream that flowed with sluggish thickness, and hunkered down beside it. She knelt, and dipped her face to the sickly stench and pursed her giant lips. She sucked the water back and back, sucked with great strength. The dirty water filled her mouth but she swallowed on and on. She sucked the stream dry. When she was finished, she moved slowly, the water jostling inside her from side to side, and straddled the dry riverbed with both feet. She squatted, with a grunt and let loose. Jaaaaaaa. Jaaaaaaaaaaaaa. The water rushed from her body, jaaaaaaaaa in a steady stream between her muscular thighs. But the water was no longer sickly, it was crystal clear. The water flowed, sweet and pure between her legs. The maggot people were soothed by the sound of the sparkling liquid. Dipped their fingers in the stream.

  “It’s good! The water is sweet!” they cried and splashed about in the stream in joy. When droplets of water fell on the earth, flowers and trees and delicate mushrooms burst from the ground in great profusion. The growth of green and tender things spread outward in a circle. Soon, the earth was fresh again, and the water flowed like music. The yamanba smiled as the maggot children danced with their new bodies around her. It began to rain.

  “That was a lovely story,” he says, tugging the brim of his finger-smudged cowboy hat.

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what happened to the maggot children and the yamanba, huh?”

  “Ah, but that’s another tale.”

  “I thought you’d say that,” he sighs in exaggerated sadness.

  “Ara?”

  “What’s the matter?” he asks, jerks his head up to glance quickly at my face. His foot instinctively lifts from the accelerator.

  “What happened to your accent?” I am amazed. And confused.

  “What accent?” he says, his brow puckered up.

  “You’re cowboy western drawl accent.”

  “I never had an accent. At least not one I noticed,” he grins.

  “Ehhhhhhh.”

  “What’s wrong?” Tengu asks, smiling crinkles into the corners of his eyes.

  “I feel so strangely. Here I was, listening to you with an accent in my ears, only there might not have been one on your lips. And it makes me wonder what else we filter through our ears. And how can anyone be sure if what they hear is what is said?” If I think about it too long, my head will burst, I’m certain!

  “You shouldn’t be so fussy,” Tengu says, tugging the rim of his hat. “Besides, it doesn’t matter now, because it’s in your head already. That’s as real as it’s going to get.”

  “Yes, you could be right. Do you have any more Mild Sevens?”

  “I got a whole carton in that bag, there at your feet,” Tengu nods.

  “Well, that shows that I’m not making everything up. Some of it must be true.”

  MURASAKI

  He cooked for me with casual grace and I just sat at the table with an icy bottle of cheap sake, my clumsy feet on the chair beside me. I was content. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to cook, only that it was such a pleasure to watch someone who did it so gracefully. I am from the school of cooks who go red in
the face and leave debris all around me. I do, of course, like to eat. And he fed me well. He pared radishes with a deft hand, twirled the blade of his slice sharp knife and a carrot turned into a rose. I quietly applauded his magic act. With delicate ease, he slivered pickled ginger into paper-thin slices and gently teased the rich-fleshed tuna to part from knobby bone. Slid knife through squid so thin so fine, the meat shone pearl opaque. I ate. Fresh seaweed so green it squeaked between my molars, ruby slices of tuna and gleam of fresh squid so sweet so chewy and hot! green mustard tingle tingled up my nose and to my head, quick, quick, sipped some icy sake, my face burned with delight. Obāchan, I tasted for you.

  “You’re not holding your chopsticks quite properly,” he said.

  “I know. I don’t hold my pen properly either. But I can still write. And I can still eat.” I dipped some squid into my tiny dish of shōyu and wasabi, turned it over once to cover it completely. Lifted the piece up to my mouth. My hashi wobbled slightly and I dribbled sauce down my chin, but the squid was in my mouth and it was oh so sweet. I was wiping the sauce off my chin with my fingers when he grabbed my hand. Licked them. He licked my fingers and slid tongue palm, nipped the heel with sharp prickle suck oh! oh! swirled circles with tongue, my palm, his teeth. Skin licked smooth and scrape, scraped edge of teeth, edge of skin, oh! Buttons. The exquisite infinite pleasure of buttons, slow twist of button out of button hole and swirled fingers dipped and stroked and whispered on heated skin on moist moist. The flat of palms slid. Slid down the slick heat of my breasts, my belly. I ran my fingers down the front of his shirt, buttons popping open, tugged his pants, no time to linger, oh hurry, hurry, kicked off my jeans, laughing, tumbling to the floor. He rolled with me on the floor, rolling, him on top then me then him. Rolling until there is no top or bottom, only a dizzy spiral of pleasure. The table, the chairs, the sushi, all spinning in the air above us.

  It was hard growing up in a small prairie town, the only Japanese-Canadians for miles around. Where everybody thought Japan was the place they saw when they watched Shōgun on TV. Obāchan laughed when she saw it. I thought it was a good story.