by Tan Twan Eng
She was aware of the effect of her words. We both stopped at the same time and studied a panel. The paint had faded and in some places had peeled, leaving behind a musty picture of an Indian prince beneath a tree, one hand stretched out into a void.
“After all this time?” I asked.
“He just wants to talk to you.”
“Did you have anything to do with it?” I asked.
“Of course I did,” she said, her glasses waving in her hand, and I realized I was being impertinent: she had been trying to persuade my grandfather to meet me since the day I was born. “Will you go and see him?”
I looked at her eager eyes, at her plump face, and knew I owed it to her to do so. I took her hand in mine—it felt so soft and warm—and said, “I’ll have to think about it. I really don’t know now.”
“When will you know?” she asked, making sure I would not elude her.
“When I come back from Kuala Lumpur. I’m leaving next week.”
“You are going to K.L.?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering if the sharper tone I had heard in her voice was imagined.
She looked at me. “I’ll inform your grandfather.”
Endo-san was solemn when we bowed and concluded the class. “Come with me,” he said. We entered his house and he ordered me to sit and wait. He went into the back and came out with a long narrow box.
“This is for you,” he said, lifting it up with both hands and bending to touch his forehead to it.
I received it in the same manner and placed it on the tatami mat. I undid the dark gray ribbon that bound it and opened the box. Inside, a katana rested on a bed of silk.
“It looks expensive,” I said. “And it seems to be identical to the one you use.”
“It is a companion piece to mine.”
“You’re giving a Nagamitsu sword to me?” I asked, my eyes widening. He had told me that his sword was unique, and much sought after by collectors because it had been specially commissioned.
Although it was customary for Japanese swords to be made in pairs, one sword was always made much shorter than the other for close-quarter fighting. What made Endo-san’s swords so highly prized and so unusual, I now realized, was that both were of the same length.
He nodded. “The swordsmith was Nagamitsu Yasuji, a member of the great Nagamitsu family which had been forging swords since the thirteenth century. This pair was made in 1890, after the Haitori Edict of 1877 prohibited the wearing of swords.”
I lifted my sword, surprised at its perfect balance. I opened it a notch and he stopped me. “That is enough. You must never pull out your sword completely without the intention of using it. Otherwise it will always thirst for blood.”
The two swords, he explained, were mounted in the buke-zukuri style, which was the most basic and practical. The scabbard—saya—was a dark brown, almost black lacquer, and the hilt was wrapped in a deep gray braid which felt rough and yet gave a comfortable grip.
“There is only one way to tell the difference between the two,” he said. “Look.” He pointed to a kanji character engraved on the blade near the guard. “Kumo. That is the name of your sword. It means cloud.”
“And what is your sword’s name?” I asked.
“Hikari,” he said. “Illumination. But ‘kari’ can also be read to mean ‘wild goose.’“
I was overwhelmed by his gift. “This is too valuable to be given to me,” I protested even though I wanted it.
“I would rather give it to you, to be used in your lessons, than have it hidden away,” Endo-san said. “I am quite certain that Nagamitsu-san did not intend his work to be kept inside a cupboard. But remember, it must never be used casually. It is always the last resort.”
I bowed to him. “Thank you, sensei. But what can I give you in return?”
“That is your problem, to be solved by you alone.”
I sat thinking and then said, “I’ll be back in a little while.” I ran to the beach and rowed back to Istana. I did not even bother to tie up the boat, but went up the steps into the house and headed into the library. I went to the shelves, searching for a particular book of poems. I found it, found the page, and rowed back to Endo-san’s island. He had already brewed tea in my short absence.
He lifted one eyebrow when I knelt before him and opened the book to the marked page and began to read:
In the blossom-land Japan
Somewhere thus an old song ran.
Said a warrior to a smith
“Hammer me a sword forthwith.
Make the blade
Light as the wind on water laid.
Make it long
As the wheat at harvest song.
Supple, swift
As a snake, without rift,
Full of lightnings, thousand-eyed!
Smooth as silken cloth and thin
As the web that spiders spin.
And merciless as pain, and cold.”
“On the hilt, what shall be told?”
“On the sword’s hilt, my good man,”
Said the warrior of Japan,
“Trace for me
A running lake, a flock of sheep
And one who sings her child to sleep.”
He placed his cup on the tatami and I closed the book. “Who wrote that?” he asked, so softly.
“Solomon Bloomgarden. It’s a Hebrew poem. My father read it to us once, long before we knew what a warrior of Japan was.”
He sat so quietly for such a long time that I was afraid my gift had been inadequate or—worse—that I had somehow given offense. Then he blinked and smiled, although I could still see a faint shade of sorrow in his eyes.
“It is a good poem, a beautiful poem,” he said. “Your appreciation of it makes me glad, for it means you are starting to understand the lessons I am trying to teach you. Please write it down for me and I shall consider my gift of your katana to have been returned in full. Domo arigato gozaimasu. Thank you.”
Chapter Seven
Michiko closed the anthology of poetry. “It is a heartfelt poem,” she said. She touched the dusty cover of the book at almost the exact same spot Endo-san had done, on the day I read the poem to him.
“I wrote out a copy for him, just as he asked and he always carried it with him even after he had it lodged in his memory,” I said. “I once asked him why. And he said he was afraid of forgetting where he came from.”
There was no reason to show her the book—I could still recite the poem from memory—but somehow it made what I had been telling her all the more real. “There were times when I wondered if it had really all happened or whether everything was a dream, like the Chinese philosopher’s dream of the butterflies,” I said.
“‘You the butterfly—I, Chuang Tzu’s dreaming heart,’“ she quoted Matsuo Basho’s haiku. “Does the philosopher dream of the butterfly, or is he merely the butterfly’s dream?”
I placed the book back on the shelf and led her out of the library. “It’s late.”
“I am not ready for sleep yet. Are you?” she asked.
I was not. But I felt, for the moment, unable to go on telling her about my youth. I looked out of a window into the dark night and made a sudden decision. “I want to show you something. We’ll have to walk some distance. Are you up to it?”
She nodded, her eyes sharing the infectious excitement in my voice. I went to my study and took two flashlights from a cupboard. I shook them to check that the batteries were still working and handed one to her. We walked down the wooden steps onto the beach, choosing a path high above the tide line. Hundreds of translucent crabs scuttled away at the vibrations of our footsteps, parting before us like a curtain of glass beads. There was sufficient light to render the flashlights unnecessary, so we did not switch them on.
“Do you still have your Nagamitsu sword?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“I never realized the one sent to me was one of a pair,” she said. “Even the swordsmith who restored it ne
ver knew.”
“The Chinese consider it a great taboo to present a friend with a knife or a sword, as it would sever the ties of friendship and bring unhappiness,” I said. “I’ve always wondered whether Endo-san knew that.”
I walked faster, uncertain if I had made the right decision in choosing to reveal my whole life to her. I reassured myself that I could stop at any moment I wished, any moment at all.
I could have walked in total darkness, so often had I done this, and somehow she knew it, for she followed me without hesitation. There was only the thinnest slice of moon wedged into the sky between the clouds, which was perfect for what I had in mind.
The beach narrowed. Ahead, we could make out the dark clumps of boulders blocking our way and hear the waves against them. An estuary lay beyond these rocks, but to get there I had to guide her away from the beach into the windswept trees that edged the beach.
The walk became harder as the ground inclined upward and I switched on the flashlight so that she would not trip over tree roots. The smell of the sea was soon layered with the sharper, almost chemical, scent of fresh water as we followed a track that would bring us to the river. Crickets stitched their regimented notes into the air. The wind was cold, and the leaves in the trees rubbed together as though to keep warm.
The river itself was quiet but for the gargling of frogs. Then an owl skimmed soundlessly over the water and there was a sudden petrified silence as the frogs felt it pass.
The path went downhill again. We caught the scent of a frangipani tree and came to it a few moments later. Next to the tree was a wooden shack which leaned dangerously into the river. Inside was a sampan and, with Michiko’s help, I managed to set it in the water, where it bobbed, eager to get going.
“Whose boat is this?” she asked as I helped her in.
I shrugged. “I put it here for anyone to use. But no one ever comes here.”
I pushed us off and immediately the flow of the river caught the
boat. As we drifted downstream I heard her soft but labored breathing and worried that the walk had been too much for her.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
I dipped the oars into the water and slowed our progress. “Close your eyes,” I said. I switched off the flashlight and studied the movement of the clouds. The wind was pushing them across the weak moon, gradually filtering out its light from the sky, turning the night completely dark.
When we had drifted to the right place, further down the river, I whispered softly, “Now—open your eyes.”
She drew in her breath. A light layer of mist rose up from the surface of the river and, in the trees, shining as though the stars had fallen to earth, tens of thousands of fireflies were sending out their silent mating signals. We were caught in a frenzy of fragmented light. I heard Michiko let out a sigh and felt her hand reach for mine. I moved it away and gently spun the boat in a circle, keeping it in the same spot as beneath us the river ran to the sea.
I wet my fingers and sat unmoving, trying to discern a pattern in the fireflies’ random flight, the stillness within movement which, Endo-san said, all living things possess. I reached out and plucked one from the air, sticking it to my dampened finger, and offered it to Michiko.
She took it carefully. The insect lay in the bed of her palm, its wet wings adhering to her skin. Its light seemed to pulsate with the beat of her heart and cast a faint glow onto her face, reflecting in her eyes.
There were tears when she lifted her face to me. “How did you know?” she asked.
“Endo-san once told me he used to go to the river outside his home and watch the fireflies. He often went with a friend, and tonight I had the strongest feeling you were the friend he had spoken of so fondly.”
She blew gently onto her palm, drying the firefly. It flew off into the flurry of blinking lights that swirled around us. “I have not seen such a large number of hotaru for a long time,” she said. “I returned to the river near my home a few years after the war, but the fireflies had all disappeared, as though blown away by a terrible storm.”
I paddled us to the edge of the river and let the boat nudge into the bank beneath a canopy of branches heavy with droplets of light. I leaned back into the boat and said, “My father told me about this place. I never knew about it until then.”
She remained quiet for a while and I wondered if she had drifted off into sleep. The boat creaked as it flexed to accommodate the flow of the river. It was so peaceful, just sitting there in the darkness surrounded by a blizzard of fairy sparks, even as the fireflies were communicating with one another without making a sound.
I felt myself nodding off, but then she spoke. “You must know the tale of the shepherd boy in China who was too poor to buy candles for his studies at night.”
“I’ve heard of it,” I replied. “He filled a white cloth bag with fireflies and used the light they gave off to study at night, didn’t he?”
“Yes. It was Endo-san who told me about it. He had heard it on his travels to Canton.”
“I heard it from my mother when I was very young. She also told us that the shepherd always released them the following morning, and would catch different ones at night,” I said, trying to remember. “She was full of interesting stories like that. She knew many of the folktales of China, but she loved most those that involved insects and birds and butterflies. Especially butterflies.”
“Why butterflies?” Michiko asked.
“My father collected them. He had cases of them, all carefully mounted. In fact, that is why they were in that town where she caught malaria; they were on an expedition to find—” I waved my hand carelessly, “I can’t even remember what it’s called now— some rare specimen for his collection. The name will come back to me.”
“I did not see any butterfly collection in your house,” she said. “What happened to it?”
I said nothing and she was too considerate to ask again. After a short silence she said, “When you sat so still, trying to catch a firefly for me, you reminded me so much of Endo-san. He could sit as unmoving and immovable as the statue of the Buddha in Kamakura. That was how he appeared, on the day his father, Aritaki-san, was placed on the shirasu before my own father, who adjudged him guilty of treason against the Emperor.”
I knew of the procedure she was referring to. In Japan, in the years before the Second World War, an accused person was required to kneel before a magistrate in a sand-covered square enclosure known as shirasu—the “white sand”—where judgement was given. I had been told of overzealous magistrates who also carried out executions on this pristine white patch, because the sand absorbed the spillage of blood so easily and could be quickly replaced with new, unblemished sand.
“I was not completely honest when I told you that I ceased my relationship with Endo-san upon my father’s orders,” Michiko said. “In fact I disobeyed him. He was so enraged that he ordered an official investigation into the anti-government comments and statements made by Endo-san’s father. It was not difficult to bring charges against him after that.”
She leaned forward, rocking the boat. “In Japan, to destroy a person, you only have to discredit his blood-kin. So you see, in my selfish way, I played a part in the downfall of Endo-san’s family.”
I did not know how to respond. What balm would my words, uttered half a century too late, be to her anyway?
“And Endo-san sat, so immobile, for so long, a statue planted on the white sand after the proceedings were over and his father was taken away,” she continued. “He never spoke to me again, except for that last time, to tell me he was leaving.”
I touched her hand with the softness of a firefly alighting on her skin. Then I picked up the oars and took us out into the middle of the river and let it carry us slowly to the sea. We floated downstream through trees thick with burning fireflies, until they faded away and we were once again in the dark, guided only by the strengthening smell of the sea and the faint li
ght of the moon.
It felt unsettling to have another person living in the house and I wondered if I had been too hasty in extending an invitation to her. And yet it felt good, somehow. She was an unobtrusive guest. I had never spoken to anyone of my own experiences in the war and, to my surprise I realized that she was the first person who had ever asked me to describe them, who wanted to know about them from me instead of hearing wildly differing fragments from various people and drawing their own conclusions. No one else had ever considered raising their questions directly with me.
This last realization left me shaken. Was it because I had all this time been silently transmitting signals that could not be detected or deciphered by others, and thus could never elicit the response I wanted? Even the fireflies, however voiceless they were, still managed to send out their messages and have them responded to.
A hand touched my arm, and I blinked and pulled in my thoughts—a fisherman hauling in his drifting nets from the sea. Michiko’s face was tense with concern. “I called you twice, but you never answered.”
“I was very far away,” I said. It was so effortless to admit this to her.
“It happens more often the older we get, does it not?” she said. “Maria wants you to know lunch is ready. She is not going to wait.”
As we left my room she said, “I have not thanked you for taking me to the river last night. The sight of the fireflies brought back so many memories.”
“I’m sorry if they brought you pain as well,” I said. “That wasn’t my intention.”
She shook her head. “I’ve learned to live with that. Who can look back and truly say all his memories are happy ones? To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation. Do you not agree?”
She did not wait for my reply but turned and went down the stairs. I was suddenly aware that I had not been as silent all these years as I had thought. The sole reason Michiko had heard was because of Endo-san’s letter to her. He had heard, he had known. And in sending her to me he had responded.