by Taeko Kono
“I want a better view,” announced Hayako, sitting beside Kisaki who was in the window seat. She moved to the seat behind him.
“Don’t sit too close,” Kisaki warned, looking back.
“I’m all right.” Her headaches never came on that side of her skull, anyway.
“You’re quite determined, aren’t you!” he said, reassured, and turned to face the front of the bus.
But her headache had, in fact, started up soon after the bus left Miyanoshita. Had it been delayed due to the heating in the train? Or was it her excitement that had held it off? Was the delay of the pain just a coincidence, after all?
Already it was coming in short sharp stabs. With each assault, she had to hold her breath in order to bear it, and then, as soon as a lull came, take deep gulps of air. She had changed seats because Kisaki would soon have guessed what was happening.
They must be more than halfway there by now. But that was cold comfort, and only meant more snow up ahead.
The driver, his hands gripping the steering wheel, said something to the woman conductor standing beside him. She nodded, and turned to the passengers. Due to weather conditions, she announced, they would have to terminate the journey at the next hot spring. The hotel Kisaki and Hayako were heading for was a little farther on: they would have to walk.
Just as Hayako winced in pain, Kisaki looked around.
“So it’s begun.” He stood up, and stepping over her knees, he sat down next to the window and turned to look into her face. “You silly girl. Why were you hiding it from me?”
Hayako waited for the pain to go, and then, drawing a deep breath, she muttered: “I didn’t think it would happen. I really thought I’d be all right.”
“Well, not to worry. We only have to catch a bus back. I’ll ask the conductor.”
Hayako shook her head. She tried to keep her face calm as another wave of pain hit.
“No, let’s go on,” she said, when it abated. “I’ll manage. It makes no difference now, anyway. It’s started.”
She refused to give up. Everything depended on getting to the snowbound outpost of Sengokubara. Perhaps she could force a miracle if they got there. Her old self had been too much under the sway of her mother and the snow. She was determined to part from that old self, once and for all.
Night had fallen. They borrowed coarse oil-paper umbrellas from the hotel, and went outside into the darkness and falling snow.
Shafts of light streaming from the windows cut through the snowflakes at several places around the building. Once they left these bands of light, it was as though they had plunged swiftly into the severest cold.
The hotel was a ten-minute walk from the hot-spring inn, on the rise of Sengokubara. In front of them, the slope stretched down into the vaguely blue darkness to meet the rise of another hill. Only a single group of blurred lights was visible in the valley below, and beyond that, the sweep of winterbound hills — an immense vista of snow as far as the eye could see. Peering through the flurries to the distant hills, Hayako thought she could see the black shapes of trees. But then she realized the blackness was only more snow.
When they reached the bottom of the slope, they walked on, bearing left, though with no goal in mind. About three inches of snow lay on the ground. Every step they took, the top layer yielded, after offering only a token resistance. The steady crunch of their footsteps added another, slow rhythm to the quicker, more caressing sound of the snow falling endlessly about them. The more she listened to the sounds’ different beats, the more they seemed to exist only inside her head. She was still experiencing waves of pain. But though her breath came in fits and starts, her feet kept moving forward, impelled by their own steady rhythm.
“Aren’t you in pain?”
Hayako let her breath out. “Yes,” she said. “But I’ll be better tomorrow. I should do this, just once. It’ll be good for me.” She was remembering the day of her mother’s scolding when she had been made to hate the snow.
“Do you want to share my umbrella? Yours must make it heavy going.”
She closed her umbrella. Snow slid off it and thudded on the ground. “I shouldn’t have taken it,” she said, joining him. She looked at it hanging in her hand.
“Let’s leave it here,” Kisaki said, grabbing it.
“But it’ll get covered.”
“We’ll leave it standing up. We can collect it on our way back. Nobody’ll take it.” He drove the umbrella into the snow with so much force it sank in almost up to the handle.
They trudged on for a while. Their progress had become much more deliberate. Hayako’s discomfort was obvious now; Kisaki was trying to take it slowly, and she was glad. The snow closed over her shoes, sneaking down inside and soaking her stockings. Her feet were chilled to the bone.
Kisaki stopped.
“Look how far we’ve come,” he said, gazing over his shoulder. In the distance was a tiny blur of scattered lights — only a few guests were staying the night. “Shall we go back?”
“Just a little bit farther.”
Kisaki shifted the umbrella as if bracing himself, and Hayako bent down to brush snow from her instep. As she did, she suddenly wished the snow to touch her bare skin. She took off a glove, crouched down, and scooped up some of the snow. She clenched her fingers, the coldness pierced them to the quick, and then she threw the frozen lump away. She was about to stand up when she noticed a little hollow in the smooth expanse of snow, and she stayed where she was, crouching.
“What are you doing?” Kisaki asked, above her.
“How about burying me?” she said. She scooped away a little more snow. “Yes, me. I just have to make the hole bigger — and get in. . . .”
“Bury you? In the snow?” Kisaki asked in amazement. The shock in his voice only exacerbated Hayako’s desire. Just then, a sharp pain ran through her head. She waited for it to recede, then stood up and caught hold of Kisaki’s wrist above the hand holding the umbrella.
“Please do it. I want you to!”
“But you’ll die of pain.”
“Yes, that’s what I want! I want to die just this once. Please bury me. Go ahead — please dig!”
Kisaki was silent, his wrist pulling back from her hand.
“Bury me here, in the deep s-s-snow,” Hayako begged him again through her stutter. “J-j-just cover me a little. Please do it!”
Kisaki staggered, and the snow fell from his umbrella with a soft thud, the thud of a dead bird falling out of the sky.
Theater
Gekijo, 1962
That night, an unusual excitement — no doubt over the presence of a foreign opera company — filled the theater lobby, particularly in the areas before the auditorium doors.
People trying to look like opera connoisseurs (though they were obviously perfect amateurs) were hemmed in by the too intimate crowd, and here and there they tried with quick elbows to swim their way out. One young couple briefly observed the melee, withdrew to whisper, and then with self-assured, determined expressions plunged straight through to the auditorium doors. Some bachelors, taking up positions on the sofas, exhaled tall tales with their cigarette smoke, staring straight into it; and along the edges stood many middle-aged and elderly couples, mostly forming small circles, little smiles fixed on their faces, whether they were in conversation or silently waiting.
Everyone clutched garishly colored programs, bobbing here and there like little waves on a tossing sea.
Sugino Hideko surveyed the scene as she ascended the stairs. The friend who had invited her, a widow named Mrs. Yamashita, was waiting in the more expensive seats of the second tier.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Hideko said, greeting her. “It was so kind of you to send the ticket express.”
The widow moved to the next seat, indicating Hideko was to have her place. “Sit yourself down, dear,”
she said. When Hideko was settled, she continued: “I haven’t seen you in ages. The last time we met was surely . . .’’ she said, referring to her husband’s funeral: “you remember. So you’ve still been coming to the concerts?”
“Recently, only to the touring production of Carmen.”
“With one of your friends?”
“No, by myself.”
“But how did you get hold of a ticket?”
“I lined up and bought one.”
“Really? That can’t have been very pleasant.”
“No, it wasn’t. So I’d abandoned any hope of coming tonight.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me, my dear? My husband may no longer be with us, but I still can take care of these things.”
Hideko felt a twinge of guilt. She had scarcely thought about this woman since Mr. Yamashita’s unexpected death six months ago.
Mr. Yamashita had been the music teacher at Hideko’s girls’ school in Kansai while she was in the lower grades. He had later given notice and gone on a scholastic exchange program to Germany, returning to Japan only after the war. By the time Hideko had moved to Tokyo with her brother’s family for his company transfer, Mr. Yamashita was already a music critic of some acclaim. He had married Mrs. Yamashita in Germany, and the couple had had one child.
“The boy will be off to university soon,” Mrs. Yamashita sighed when she telephoned Hideko to invite her. Rather than escort his mother to the opera, he’d gone hiking in the mountains with his friends.
Nearly ten years had passed since Hideko had run into Mr. Yamashita and renewed her acquaintance with him, or rather, with his whole family. All that time, she had never failed to visit the couple once or twice a month; and she had many times gone on shopping and theater trips with one or both of them, with or without their son.
After moving to Tokyo, Hideko had lived as an unmarried woman for nearly four years in her brother’s home. Finally, thanks to her brother’s mediation — a pure formality — she had ended up marrying Sugino, a man with whom she was somewhat acquainted. Neither of them was exactly in the bloom of youth. After two years, which had not gone very well, Sugino had been sent by his company for technical training to West Germany. By now he had been gone as long as they had been together.
Her unhappy circumstances and setbacks were doubtless the reason Mr. and Mrs. Yamashita had been so kind to Hideko for nearly ten years. The couple knew almost everything about her marital situation — though, of course, they never forced her to be explicit. Hideko no longer remembered precisely what she could have told them, nor in what circumstances; and the couple would probably have been hard put to say themselves. And though she’d received advice, even admonishment, from them over their long acquaintance, never once had they presumed to tell her how to live her life.
Hideko had adored being in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Yamashita. They had been so considerate, and such a very loving couple.
Mrs. Yamashita closed her program. “You must come and see me more often,” she said. “I need company, too. Tell me, are you still hearing from your husband?”
“Yes, occasionally.”
“I see. Well, dear, I think you should resign yourself. He’s just a very peculiar man.”
A buzzer announced that the opera would be starting soon.
Nearly every seat in the auditorium was occupied. Seated where she was, Hideko caught only a glimpse of the floor below, but it seemed, as far as she could tell, filled with foreigners. At the far end of one of the lower balconies she could see two couples — and one was foreign. The woman looked to be in her midtwenties. She wore a white dress that exposed her shoulders, and long evening gloves.
Were those people here tonight? Were they sitting somewhere near? Hideko wondered, glancing around.
A little in front of her, down toward the left, sat two figures side by side with straight reddish hair pulled back in ponytails. There was nothing uneven about their shoulders, clothed in eveningwear. They had their heads bent toward each other, deep in conversation. They must be sisters, Hideko thought, or very good friends.
She was about to look away when the girls’ heads drew apart. In the space beyond that opened up, she caught sight of a man’s profile. The next instant, however, the heads came back together, blocking her view.
Straining to the left and right, and finally almost hoisting herself out of her seat, Hideko tried to get one more look at the man just to make sure. But the girls’ heads were once more drawn tightly together, and for all her efforts, the man remained out of sight.
From his profile, he did seem to be the man she had met at the performance of Carmen. In that case, she wondered, was the woman who had been with him here tonight as well? She could only see men’s dinner jackets flanking the man in question, however, and there was no sign of the woman sitting anywhere nearby.
The buzzer rang a second time. The girls’ heads parted, opening a space again. This time, Hideko got a view not in profile, but of the back of his head, with its thick hair, just visible above the back of his seat. His head was much lower than any around him. It was also pitched forward at an unnatural angle. There could be no doubt. It was he.
Hideko gazed at the rapidly dimming auditorium lights, and felt a gnawing frustration at having been unable to catch sight of the woman. So she appeared not to have come.
An announcement came over the loudspeakers: Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we present for your appreciation Rigoletto.
Of course, Hideko thought: tonight was Rigoletto. And yet, she reflected, the woman hadn’t seemed like the sort who would object to coming to an opera about a hunchback escorted by a man with that very deformity. Perhaps it was the hunchback himself who minded; perhaps he thought it too degrading for her and humiliating for himself. On the other hand, it was possible that the woman couldn’t obtain another ticket. Or even that she was ill, or otherwise engaged. Or . . .
A burst of applause brought her back to the present. The conductor had emerged, and made his way to the raised platform in the center of the orchestra. The footlights dimly lit his face as he turned to the audience and, bowing, met another wave of applause. Out went the houselights. Now a shadow puppet outlined against his lit score, the conductor raised his arms, baton in one hand. A hubbub went muffling through the audience, as people cleared their throats for one last time. The instant it subsided, the baton came slicing down.
Yes, it was Rigoletto all right: that was the overture. Whenever Hideko heard an opera’s first few notes, she always felt that the music wanted to tell her that, even if only for a little while, she could be liberated from all trivial cares. And she would eagerly seize the opportunity to be transported to another world.
But tonight, in Hideko’s mind, the world of Rigoletto was occupied by another hunchback, the one in the audience. Did the woman know that the man was here? Or had he come on the sly? Was he such an opera devotee that, even with that deformity, he felt no compunction about coming to Rigoletto? Perhaps, since he’d been a hunchback all his life, the coincidence could no longer embarrass him. The absence of his companion began to obsess Hideko. She felt a craving to see them watch Rigoletto together.
It was the woman, alone, whom Hideko had first encountered, two months ago outside the ticket agency, standing in line to buy her ticket to Carmen.
That morning, it had started to rain before the doors opened at ten o’clock. Hideko was near the head of the line, but the doorway’s awning provided shelter only to the person just in front of her — the woman.
The rainy season was nearly over, and earlier on the weather had looked fine, so few people had brought an umbrella or rainwear. The woman, however, was wearing an old, worn, off-white raincoat, with a belt. She also wore stiletto heels. She seemed about the same age as Hideko; nothing about her suggested she might be married — and yet she didn’t look like a faded office girl, either. She had more
the well-bred air of somebody who had graduated from college two or three years before, but whose family had recently come down in the world, and so she hadn’t married and the years went by.
Turning up her collar, the woman peered at the sky from under the awning. “You’re going to get wet,” she remarked to Hideko. “Come in a bit.” As she spoke, she tried to flatten herself to the wall. But the awning was very narrow and high, and she was right at its edge: the hem of her raincoat was already getting spattered with rain.
“Thank you. I’m all right,” Hideko said, politely. “It’s not raining very hard.”
The woman didn’t insist. Instead, reaching across her coat, she drew out a newspaper, folded lengthwise and peeping from her pocket. “Well, use this,” she said, offering it to Hideko. “I’m done with it.” The newspaper served to cover Hideko’s head until the line moved inside, proceeding downstairs into the basement.
Here they found themselves in a long narrow room, or wide corridor. Fat pipes crawled along its low ceiling. The line formed again in front of big bins filled with discarded paper, faded documents bundled untidily together, and sundry bits of broken furniture.
Everybody waited, and grew bored.
“We have to get tickets for opening night,” a young man announced to his neighbors in line.
Hideko was of exactly the same mind. The whole performance rested on the reputation of the lead soprano, but the woman would have an understudy, as would all the stars. Nobody knew which performers would perform on particular nights, but one thing was certain: opening night would feature the troupe’s finest singers. Almost everyone who’d lined up early that morning wanted the cheapest possible tickets for that night.