Toddler Hunting

by Taeko Kono

  Then her father saw something black peeping out of the snow at her feet. Thrusting her to one side, he hurried to dig it up. His wife fended off his hands. “No, I want to keep her in there,” she insisted, scooping up snow to cover it.

  Hayako’s mother had murdered her own child — in a fit of temporary insanity, it was true, but this didn’t change the fact. That her breakdown stemmed from his own infidelity made Hayako’s father particularly anxious to hush up the incident.

  For the funeral, he asked one of his friends, a doctor, to state in the death certificate that the ­three-­year-old child, born to his mistress, had died of a serious illness. Once that was done, he arranged to have the new baby entered into the family register, in her elder ­half sister’s space — under the same age, birthday and name.

  Her mother had been hospitalized. Hayako had been sent out to a ­wet nurse. Six months later, by the time her mother was discharged, the family had moved away from the house in Hongo with its unhappy associations to a new one in Suginami. When Hayako was brought home, she was three years old.

  The incident had taken place on December 16th — fourteen years earlier to the very night — and each year, on that day, the couple would make a pilgrimage to the temple, bearing the memorial tablet of the child who had been buried in the snow. That fourteenth year, however, her father was very busy at work. Her mother set out at the appointed time to the temple, alone, but when she had telephoned him at the office, he’d told her he would go later; meanwhile she was to have sutras read and go home, leaving the memorial tablet there. When he came home that night, however, he didn’t have it with him, so his wife knew he hadn’t gone. He had had too much work, he said, but she said this was just an excuse. Finally, she told him: if, for even one day of the year, he could not be bothered about the dead Hayako, why should she care about the living one?

  Of course, that night when they told her the story, her parents had probably given Hayako only the barest account. The details she now knew probably came from all the countless retellings. But even then, Hayako had been left in no doubt as to the story’s implications.

  First her father talked, then her mother. Everything had begun in a fight, but they finally joined forces in telling her how she should take the news. Her mother looked at her: “Do you feel all right?”

  Hayako shrugged off the question.

  “In that case,” she asked, after a while, “I am fourteen, not sixteen?”

  “Well, you could say that, yes,” her father replied.

  “And my birthday isn’t the 3rd of July. When was I born?”

  “When? Let’s see. It was October. It was the ­twenty-something, wasn’t it? I can’t recall.”

  “And my real name?”

  Her father fell silent. Finally, he said, “Haven’t you had enough?”

  “He’s right, Hayako,” her mother said. “Why bother about that? What’s the point? Learning another age, birthday, and name for yourself all over again? You’re sixteen years old, you were born on the 3rd of July. Just accept it.”

  When she saw her mother the next morning, Hayako flushed a deep red. But even more distressing was the moment at school when she had to put her name on her exam — the characters she started to write came out all wrong. She erased them, and tried again. But this time, it came boiling up inside her that how she wrote this name did not matter; it belonged to somebody else anyway; and her second attempt made an even bigger mess.

  In the immediate aftermath of the war, for the first few winters there were frequent snowfalls in Tokyo. Hayako had feared and loathed snow for years, ever since being punished for it as a child, but now that she knew the truth, her reaction to it became even more extreme.

  Trudging over the snow in her rubber boots, her every step would be met with a piercing squeak. Hayako couldn’t help feeling that she and the snow were engaged in mutual torment, that she was crushing thousands of little flakes underfoot, and they, in turn, were squealing out their hatred of her. As the sound started to bother her, her pace faltered, and finally she would come to a complete standstill. Before her and behind her, she could see nothing but a glittering white expanse. The ­snowflakes under her boots prepared themselves for an attack; a chill passed up through their soles, and the frozen stillness that follows a snowfall would start to gnaw into her shoulders and neck. She felt her whole body begin to change into translucent rock.

  At such times Hayako would feel that the person whom her mother had murdered that night in the snow had been none other than her own self. The self who had survived was only the ghost of the self who’d died. Like a ghost, she was destined to pass through the world, never knowing her own age or birthday. Even when she died, her funeral would be held in somebody else’s name.

  These thoughts still plagued Hayako as an adult. According to the register, she was two years older than Kisaki, though in fact they were the same age. Older or younger — it made little difference as far as she was concerned: the entry was false; and it would remain so, whether in her father’s family register or Kisaki’s. No matter that the snowflakes melted after a brief span of time: those few seconds were packed with infinite malice. Even if they did marry, the snow would continue to fall, and cover their union in a blizzard of derision.

  Looking at Kisaki — a workman’s towel tied around his head for their ­end-­of-­the-year cleaning, or on a summer evening, as he relaxed at home in a cotton kimono — Hayako would suddenly be struck by his youthfulness: no other man his age shared it, whether single, engaged, or married. She would feel that the essence of their life together had been revealed, and his hidden depths laid bare.

  She dreaded his leaving her to live in the snow country. In the meantime, however, she loved their present life, every day of which was happy, from the bottom of her heart. Yes, she could marry him: she could make him refuse the transfer to the snow country and so give up being promoted at his company. Or she could agree to live with him there, leaving him for the winter months. But whatever she did, Hayako knew that the cruel snow would in time exact its revenge.

  The elderly man next to Hayako leaned toward her.

  “Is that rain falling, or snow?” he asked, removing his glasses and peering through the foggy window.

  Hayako glanced outside and blanched.

  “Snow, possibly,” Kisaki answered for her. “You all right?” he asked her.

  “Yes, I am. Really.” She felt not the slightest symptom, even though it was certainly snow skimming past the window. “Perhaps it’s because of the train’s heating system.”

  “Let’s hope so. Let’s hope, too, that you can make it to Ito. It’s much warmer there. There won’t be any snow.”

  He was trying to rally her spirits — she should try her best not to succumb. But she didn’t have much confidence. She’d only made her comment about the heating to reassure him. More likely, her headaches hadn’t yet come because she was traveling in the train, keeping one step ahead of the clouds — not enough of them had gathered overhead yet to have any effect.

  The train passed through Hiratsuka. Across the black letters of the platform signs the snow swirled down in dense diagonal flurries. Already it was falling so thickly, she thought, watching the station signs go by; she would never hold out as far as Ito. Her headaches would begin any moment. Then, another thought struck her. She turned her face toward the window.

  “What’s the matter? Has it started?”

  Kisaki leaned over to peer into her face. She shook her head and bent away from him even more. She was crying.

  “Are you in pain?” he asked.

  “No, no. I was just thinking about Mother. . . .”

  That her headache hadn’t started yet, she realized, must have something to do with her mother’s death. In the dream Mother had come to say farewell to her; and, according to that woman, she had even sent her a sign from the other world. Hayako c
ould not hold back the tears.

  As a child, Hayako had never been conscious of any undue severity from her mother. Perhaps her attention had been absorbed by the inconsistencies posed by her assumed age and true aptitudes, and by her uneasiness and suspicion. Perhaps there was little chance for her to make any comparisons in treatment since her only sibling was a brother four years older.

  Nevertheless, she had to admit, her mother had been cruel to her. And she hadn’t changed, even after the truth of their relationship had been revealed.

  Whenever her mother was upset, she would go two or three days without speaking to Hayako. Even when Hayako begged her for money to go to school, she would be met with silence.

  Hayako remembered once arriving home late for dinner and starting to fumble for apologies in the kitchen. “Oh, so it’s excuses now, is it?” her mother interrupted, her back turned. “Take your time. Sit down right there, so you can think about what to say.” Hayako had to sit on the kitchen floor with an empty stomach until late into the night.

  Another time, one summer vacation, Hayako had arranged to go with friends to the seaside the very day her mother decided to clean the house. When she expressed doubts about canceling the trip, her mother grabbed the dyed calico tablecloth Hayako had just finished for the fall school exhibition. “So you’re happy to go off and leave me with all this work! In that case — ” And she tore the cloth into shreds.

  Hayako had felt humiliation and rage. It was surprising, considering these incidents, how rarely she had longed for her real mother.

  One night, her brother came home late and, without a word of apology, sat down at the one place left at the table.

  “Where have you been?” her mother asked.

  “It’s none of your business,” he replied.

  “Oh?” her mother retorted. “Perhaps you’d like to try sitting on the floor, like your sister did, a few days ago? It works—doesn’t it, Hayako?”

  “It certainly does,” Hayako answered, cheerfully.

  There was no doubt that her brother was her mother’s child, but time and again Hayako had the impression that she too shared her mother’s blood. Not the thick, rich blood that flows peacefully through the veins, but the blood they sucked and licked from the scratches inflicted on each other when they fought tooth and nail — so passionate was their attachment.

  Here was a woman who had been forced to raise the daughter of her husband’s mistress, and with the same name as her own baby — whom she’d murdered with her own hands. It was only natural to vent her frustration on Hayako. At first, she must have looked at her adopted daughter with pure hatred; but as time passed, as she saw how Hayako, forced to suffer under her emotional outbursts, shared her unhappiness, she had come to feel a certain pleasure in her — a certain intimacy and love. Hayako remembered her mother telling her later, just as if they were secretly savoring some delicious tidbit of food, how tiny she had looked at kindergarten amongst the other children; how, on the day when she’d first been brought home as a little baby, she had wanted to hold Hayako, but her arms hadn’t obeyed.

  Hayako felt that her mother was the mainstay of her tenuous existence. Her father had been the one to rescue her from the garden that snowy day, but her impulsive violent mother occupied a special place in her heart.

  It was about two years after learning the facts of her birth that Hayako started to suffer from her mother’s malady.

  She’d always known that her mother was troubled by migraines in winter, but she’d never realized they came because of the snow. Knowing they caused her mother’s condition only increased her own hatred for snowy days, and made them twice as unbearable for her as before — not only because she couldn’t help getting tense when her mother’s mood darkened, but also because the snow seemed to taunt her, now, with a reminder of her own unhappiness. In all of these ways she was affected, and eventually she developed the same symptoms.

  The first time she experienced a migraine, Hayako went and informed her mother.

  “Since early this morning, I’ve had a pain here,” she said, touching her right temple. This was the same side of the head which always afflicted her mother.

  “Really?” her mother replied softly, clearly taken aback. Her voice held pity, but it was disturbed, too, by this adoptive daughter who insisted on sharing her malady.

  But they avoided actually being together as they suffered from the same illness. To cling to each other was too much, for both of them. Although secretly longing to be with her mother, Hayako would stay out of her way. During the worst pain, her mother would take to bed, but Hayako felt too embarrassed to follow suit. I should stay up at least till nine, she would think, alone in her room. Her mother would come in, in several layers of nightclothes. “Aren’t you in pain?” she asked, handing her a small bottle of medicine with a glass of water, and telling her to take some. She never inquired any further into Hayako’s condition. Tilting the bottle, she would stare at the white powder inside. “Of course, it won’t do much good,” she would say, and leave.

  When her headache was at its peak, her mother would snap at her father when he inquired how she was: “Why do you ask? It’s always painful!” But if Hayako came to tell her that she was on her way somewhere, she would respond sweetly: “Oh, you’re going out? Take care.” Never once did she try to dissuade Hayako from leaving. She, too, preferred that they suffer apart.

  Even after they lived separately, whenever Hayako’s headaches came, the first person her thoughts would turn to was her mother. There was no need to feel constrained anymore, but this very freedom seemed to make Hayako obsessed by her. How was the weather in Osaka? Was it snowing there too? Perhaps there was no snow yet, but what about those horrible clouds? Were they looming over the horizon? As the pain came again, over and over, she felt that, miles away, the same pain shot through her mother’s head.

  “Aren’t you in pain, Mother?” she wanted to call out. “Mother, I’m suffering too.”

  And now her mother had gone to a place where her old complaint could no longer trouble her — and for the first time in ten years, snow brought Hayako no sign of a headache. It could not be just a coincidence: surely, her mother was telling her something from beyond the grave.

  The train passed through Oiso and Ninomiya. The snow was still falling. White patches were beginning to form on the ground.

  “How are you holding up?” Kisaki asked her.

  Hayako shook her head. “I feel fine. Isn’t it strange!”

  “Maybe it is the heating inside.”

  “It’s because we’re taking a trip. My headaches don’t want to get in the way.” Hayako gazed boldly out the window. She turned back to Kisaki. “Why don’t we get out at Hakone?”

  “Hakone?”

  “Yes, let’s not go all the way to Ito.”

  “Why not? You know there’ll be deep snow at Hakone.”

  “Yes. ­Th-that’s why I want to go there. I want to take the plunge.”

  “You’re being foolhardy,” he warned.

  “I don’t think so. I think my illness has left me for good,” she replied. She explained briefly why.

  “I still think it has something to do with the heating,” Kisaki said.

  “But I want so much to go,” she replied.

  She wanted to go to a place where the snow would be really deep, to be sure that the miracle had occurred. Why flee to Ito, where it would be warm, just for fear of her malady? That would be letting her mother down. If they went on to Ito she would never know whether this turn of events was a miracle or pure chance.

  The train passed through Kaminomiya station.

  “Odawara’s the next stop. Come on.” Hayako stepped out of her shoes and onto the seat to take down their luggage. Kisaki looked at her without stirring. Hayako laid their two suitcases on the seat, and put on her shoes again. “Please let me try,” she plea
ded. “It won’t be too late to book a room, will it?”

  “Oh, there’ll be places to stay, but . . . ,” he said, unconvinced.

  “So you’re getting out?” asked the man sitting next to Hayako.

  “Yes.”

  The two men shifted their knees to one side.

  “Thank you.” Hayako took both their suitcases, gave Kisaki one more look, and set off down the aisle. Kisaki rose from his seat and followed.

  The train came to a halt. As she stepped out of the warm carriage onto the snowy platform, Hayako shivered.

  “I told you it would be cold,” Kisaki teased.

  Hayako said she wanted to go on to Sengokubara. They had once stayed at a hotel there in fine weather.

  It was a Saturday afternoon, but only a handful of passengers boarded the bus, because of the season and the snow. At Miyanoshita, four alighted, making the inside of the bus that much more forlorn. Here, two policeman, their waterproof capes dark against the white snow, were waving down vehicles, inspecting them, and sending back the ones without tire chains.

  “It’ll get worse after this,” Kisaki said. “Shouldn’t we get off here? We’ll be in trouble if we end up with no place to stay.” Already one route change had been announced: the bus would terminate at Sengokubara, though it usually went all the way to Kojiri.

  “Let’s go as far as we can. I’m surprised the winter’s so mild here!” Hayako remarked, looking outside. Snow was still falling, but dark patches showed through on the road and on the nearby bushes.

  But Kisaki was right. On leaving Kiga, the bus progressed at a snail’s pace, its ­chain-wrapped tires creaking and scraping. The land around them was rapidly turning white, and when the bus turned off for Miyagino, there was nothing but snow and more snow.

  All they could see of the road were the tracks left by previous vehicles, and these were fast disappearing in the mounting layers of white. Snow clouds hung down low in the sky, merging it with the land at a point which seemed close at hand. Dusk was gathering. The gray world was growing darker, pressing in around them. The snow swirled in powdery flakes — in flurries that were whirled up again by the wind just before touching the ground. Some snowflakes fastened onto the windows, as if forgoing the mad joy of descent in order to move forward with the vehicle.