by Yasuo Uchida
Tachibana awoke to the song of mountain birds. Opening the curtains, he found that West Peak of the Togakushi Mountains—usually visible from his window—was completely hidden by fog.
He washed, dressed, and went down to the restaurant. Though he normally skipped breakfast at home, he was quite hungry this morning, and most of all, he was dying to enjoy a leisurely cup of hot coffee. Taking his time over a light breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast, he saw groups of people here and there who had already eaten and were leaving, though it wasn't even eight.
He wondered what their hurry was. How peculiar that young people—who still had plenty of time—always liked to rush, while old folks like himself—who were running out of time—liked to take it easy. Strange world!
A number of rooms that he passed on the way back to his own had already been vacated, their doors left open. An old cleaning lady was pushing around a handcart with a big bag, into which she was putting dirty sheets and towels. Soon, Yuko Noya would be there with the station wagon to collect the laundry.
His phone began to ring just as he entered his room.
"Good morning! Have you had breakfast?" came Yuko's cheerful voice over the line. "I've brought my mother with me. Would you like to meet her?"
"Yes, of course."
Having arranged to meet them in the coffee shop on the first floor, Tachibana brushed his teeth and shaved in high spirits, hoping that Yuko Noya's mother, Katsura, would turn out to be Taki's daughter. Yuko's resemblance to Taki might be only his imagination, but if Katsura was Taki's daughter, perhaps she had inherited Taki's personality and rare beauty even more clearly than Yuko.
When he met her in the coffee shop and made so bold as to take a good look at her, however, he was forced to admit that she bore no particular resemblance to Taki. She was pretty, to be sure, but she lacked the elegant beauty Taki had been blessed with. Even allowing for her age, probably thirty-seven or thirty-eight, he could not believe that she had ever come close to possessing Taki's beauty. Still, whether she looked like Taki or not, she definitely reminded him of someone, though he couldn't think whom.
"Take your time. I have work to do," said Yuko cheerfully, dashing off after making a brief introduction.
Yuko gone, Tachibana and Katsura quickly became stiff and formal. He called the waiter over and asked her what she would have. She requested coffee, and he ordered a cup for each of them.
"You are being very kind to Yuko," she said, in a voice with a calming effect. Her singing voice would be alto, thought Tachibana, not unlike Taki's.
"No, no, it's she who is going to a lot of trouble over me. I'm really enjoying myself more than I ever thought possible."
"But she's just gotten her driver's license, and I'm afraid she must be tiring you out with a very rough ride."
"Not at all. She drives very safely, and she knows how to take good care of this old man."
The coffee arrived, interrupting the conversation. Katsura handled her spoon with refinement and took dainty sips of coffee. Both her hairdo and her dress were quite casual, and her make-up was light, which pleased him. Yet she seemed to emanate a zest for life which Taki had never had, so perhaps there was no connection after all. Still, Tachibana was not ready to give up the idea completely.
"Yuko told me that you know something about my family background," he said.
"Oh dear! Did she tell you that?" Katsura looked a little embarrassed. "It's really only your name that I had heard, I'm afraid."
"But may I ask how you knew about the title of viscount in my family?"
"I heard that from my grandmother, when I was in junior high school, I believe. During spring cleaning once, I happened to open an English dictionary I noticed on the bookshelf in my father's room, and I saw the name Tomohiro Tachibana inside the cover. My grandmother was right beside me at the time, and I asked her who he was. She said he was the young master of a viscount's family, who had given the dictionary to my father when my father was a student. But the dictionary was an old one, and I already had a newer one, and then my grandmother died shortly after that, and I forgot all about the old dictionary until around ten years ago when Yuko found it somewhere or other and asked me the same question I had asked my grandmother. Wasn't it funny how history repeated itself, I thought, and I gave Yuko the same answer my grandmother had given me."
Tachibana suddenly remembered the circumstances. Having heard that Keijiro's son, about a year older than himself, was working his way through school in Nagoya or Osaka, and having himself received a big new dictionary from his own father, he had presented his old concise dictionary to Keijiro to give to his son.
"Do you still have the dictionary?" he asked.
"No. Yuko used it for a little while, but as soon as my father saw her with it, he bought her a new one and locked the old one away somewhere. For some reason, he got terribly angry. Oh! I don't think I should be telling you this. But when Yuko was in her third year of junior high school, I believe, she came home one day and showed me a supplementary-reading book that had been written by you, Professor Tachibana, and I asked her not to mention it to her grandfather. That's why it seems so strange that I should be meeting you now. But somehow or other, I had the feeling that some day I would." Katsura's cheeks were flushed. She had been speaking with the eagerness of a young girl.
"Er, what became of Keijiro, your grandfather?"
"He died about the time I was born. Did you know him well, Professor?"
"Yes. He was very kind to me when I was young," said Tachibana, wondering how he was going to answer if she wanted to know more.
"Oh really?" She let it drop with that.
"Er, I do hope you'll forgive me for prying," he said, "but could you tell me about your mother?"
"My mother?" Katsura was obviously embarrassed. "I'm afraid I don't know anything at all about her except that she died when I was born. I'm sure you'll think it strange, but I don't even know her name."
"I see. Your daughter told me much the same thing. But couldn't you find out by checking the family register?"
"That's what I thought, so I tried it. But I found I was registered as the oldest daughter of Keijiro and Mitsu Noya, my paternal grandparents. They must have had some awfully good reason for not recording my real mother's name. I asked my father about it, but he absolutely refused to tell me anything. It bothered me a lot when I was younger, especially when I got married, but I just don't let it get to me anymore."
"Let's see, if I remember correctly, your father's name is..."
"Keiichi."
"Oh yes. He should be about sixty-one, I believe. He's in good health, I trust?"
"Excellent health, thank you."
"I'm very glad to hear that. Please tell him I'd like to see him again."
Whether or not Keiichi had married Taki, Tachibana should at least be able to find out from him what had become of her. He supposed that she must have died an untimely death, and he flinched at the thought of hearing about it, but he felt he had to know.
Having finished loading the laundry, Yuko returned, beads of perspiration on her forehead, ready to take her mother along to the next stop on her route.
"Professor," she said, "there's a place I'd like to take you tonight."
"Oh? Where?"
"Do you remember the study circle 1 mentioned? Well, they're going to be discussing the Demoness Legend tonight, so I'd really like you to come."
"Well, I certainly wouldn't mind, but I really don't see how I could contribute anything. I'm sure you and the local people must know far more about the Demoness than I."
"Actually, the reason I want you to come is so you can hear what they have to say. You see, my little talk at the class party wasn't really my own, and I'd like you to get it from the horse's mouth."
"Oh, I see," laughed Tachibana. "As a matter of fact, I did have the feeling that your opinions were a little too sophisticated for a freshman. Okay, fine, I'll just have to let you take me, then," he said, like a dot
ing grandfather.
Arriving to pick Tachibana up in a tiny subcompact at an hour she judged he would have finished supper, Yuko filled him in about the study circle on the way there. Its hangout was the Ochi Inn, located on the slope in the Middle Shrine village. The members collected folk tales and legends of Togakushi and published various interpretations and discussions in booklets. She had read one of their booklets when she was in high school and been so impressed that, ever since, she had taken part in their activities whenever she had a chance. The circle's leader was the master of the inn, a middle-aged man named Fusao Ochi, who in his university days was said to have been the champion protest leader of the student union, but whose mild manners today made that hard to believe. He now often chuckled about being afraid to face his wife because he devoted all his time to the circle instead of to business.
"We're honored to have a university professor here tonight," he welcomed Tachibana without affectation. There were ten-odd people present, more than half of them local, but there were five who, like Yuko, were from farther away.
When Ochi introduced Tachibana, one of the women asked, "Are you the Professor Tomohiro Tachibana who wrote In Support of a New Interpretation of the Classics?"
"Yes, he is," Yuko answered for him. "It was reading that book that made me choose the university that Professor Tachibana teaches at. Have you read it too, Mrs. Murata?"
"Oh yes," replied the woman addressed as Murata, her eyes sparkling. "But I never dreamed I would actually be meeting the famous Professor Tachibana!"
Tachibana was greatly embarrassed, but the woman's enthusiastic praise served to put the group in an excellent mood. It turned out that his method in that book—the method of giving not merely a simple interpretation of the classics themselves, but rather of relating them to other works and to historical events—had been adopted as the fundamental method of the study circle.
"This year our theme is the Demoness Legend, actually a big jumble of theories, none really well established. So I thought we should try simply to put together a collection of traditional things, such as the Noh drama, 'Maple-Viewing,'" said Ochi, in a tone that sounded like a carryover from his student days. "I was born around here, so I've been hearing stories about the Demoness Maple since my childhood. Mainly, though, the stories have been the old moral tales about good rewarded and evil punished. In other words, stories about a demoness named Maple who lived in Kinasa and used a cave on Mt. Arakura as a base from which to plunder the surrounding area, until a general was sent from the capital to subdue her.
"But one day, on my way home from college, I happened to get into a conversation with the person sitting next to me on the train, and he told me that Maple had really existed, and that the term 'demon' had been widely applied to someone who symbolized the terror and hatred of the original inhabitants of a place for the conquerors who came to subjugate them—in this case, the Yamato Court. After that conversation, my attitude changed completely, and I became captivated by the Demoness. I began to think of her as a kind of Joan of Arc, a heroine defending the masses against the oppression of the state. Young and naive as I was then, I had to relate everything to some ideology or other, and I was intoxicated with the lurid fantasy of a beautiful woman turning into a demoness over the hatred and despair she felt as a result of oppression."
So Fusao Ochi's original motive in taking up the study of the Demoness Legend had been to develop a new theory which placed Maple on the side of the masses and emphasized the injustice of the state. He had been trying to turn against the state a story it had once used to pacify troublesome natives.
"But with long years of research, that tainted motive was replaced by a purer attachment to Maple and her legend," continued Ochi. "I acquired a real feeling for the days she spent living in Kinasa. I dropped my thoughts of ideologies and resistance movements and began to think only about the passionate world of Maple herself, living among villagers who were our ancestors and expressing her longing for the capital and the man she loved in the only way she could: by fighting."
Tachibana could see where Yuko had gotten her sympathy for the Demoness Maple. The members of the group familiarized themselves with the legend by listening to Ochi's talks, exchanged information about literary records they had found, and sometimes made field trips together. They divided up the subjects for research, and later each reported on his own. It was truly a society based on friendship and a common interest in the study of local history, untainted by any ideological intent.
"All of this is far from the goal I originally had in mind," Ochi went on, "but I am well satisfied. The only other wish I have is to develop some local patriotism through our activities, so that we may stand up against the wave of reckless building that could destroy the natural environment of Togakushi."
"I guess you mean the building of the golf course they're talking about now," said Tachibana with a pang.
"Exactly. That's going to be trouble," frowned Ochi. "Fundamentally, the tourist industry depends on a proper balance between natural resources and development, so we have to tolerate a certain amount of destruction of nature, but not this. If we permit such an outrage, it will mean the destruction of Togakushi. But I don't think that's going to happen. There's a lot of national forest land around here, so I think the plans for the golf course are going to collapse. If they ever do really get started, the whole town will be up in arms against them."
That was probably true, thought Tachibana with a touch of uneasiness.
The presence of the unexpected guest turned the study circle meeting into a lively conversation party. Tachibana listened rather than talked, but came away well satisfied. Yuko was overjoyed to hear that on the way home in the car.
"I'm off tomorrow afternoon," she said, "and I'd like to show you the Shogan Temple in Kinasa and the Daisho Temple in Shigarami. Maple's spirit is enshrined at the Shogan Temple, and at the Daisho Temple, there's a scroll painting that tells the Maple-Viewing story, and a Buddhist mortuary tablet on which the names of Maple and Taira no Koremochi are written together. Then I've got to show you Maple's grave, called Demon's Mound. You'll join me, please, won't you?"
"I'll be glad to."
She let him out in front of the hotel, and was about to start off, when suddenly she stuck her head out the window and said, "Did you notice the resemblance, Professor?"
"Pardon?"
"To my mother!"
He didn't know what she was talking about. She could hardly have known he thought her mother looked like someone. "Who is it you think resembles your mother?"
"Why, you, of course, Professor! I noticed it the first time I saw you!"
"Eh?" He felt like he had been slapped into awareness. So that was why he thought he had seen Katsura Noya before! She looked like his mother! As a child, he had always been told that he looked like his mother. To Yuko, who had never met his mother, Katsura must look like him.
After managing a wave goodbye, he put his hands to his head, trying to collect himself, wondering what it all meant. Could the resemblance be mere coincidence? Such things did happen. It had delighted Yuko, but she didn't seem to attach any special significance to it. He, however, knowing the possible implications, could not help but take it very seriously.
Assuming that Keiichi, son of Keijiro and his wife, had been demobilized right at the end of the war in 1945 and gotten married immediately, the earliest Katsura could have been born would have been the summer of 1946. That would make her thirty-seven. To have a daughter of university age, she would have had to get married at eighteen and give birth at nineteen. Young, to be sure, but not impossibly so.
Unless Keiichi had returned to Japan immediately after the war, though, Katsura could not be even that old. Sorry though he was that he had not asked Yuko her mother's age, he was afraid of what he might have learned. If Keiichi had been legitimately married, it would hardly have been necessary to register Katsura's parents as Keijiro and his wife. There had to be some good reason for that. Perh
aps it was that Katsura had in fact been born before Keiichi came home from the war, and that her mother—Tachibana was almost sure that was Taki—had died at childbirth?
If that were the case, then Katsura's real father must be... Tachibana stood in shock, his chest so tight he could hardly breathe. He was seized by a chill, and beads of perspiration came out on his forehead.
The early morning drums were sounding from the Hoko Shrine. The sounds infiltrated the tops of the giant cedars, drank their fill of the mountain air, and resounded with a deep, mellow boom. Tachibana was climbing the long stone staircase for the first time in nearly forty years, aware of his age and feeling his legs get heavier with each step, as he thought of the years that had passed. Yet the steps were still as he remembered them. Even the mossy areas and bare spots where the slope was too steep looked familiar. Neither did he notice any change in the cedars which lined the stairs. If they had gotten thicker or older, he couldn't tell. On his first arrival in Togakushi, he had been told by Keijiro that these trees were eight hundred years old. Then they must be going on eight hundred and fifty now, he thought, amused. Amused, but melancholy.
He made it to the top in time for the climax of the shrine dance, where the god Tajikarao stamped on stage posturing fiercely, then took the Rock Door of the Heavens under his arm and carried it off, while turning his grim red face from side to side. The door was replaced by the divine mirror which represented the Sun Goddess, and Shinto music of rejoicing and thanksgiving began. The production had never changed, Tachibana felt keenly, only the actors and dancers were different.
After the dance, the ceremony ended with the members of the Togakushi Religious Association, which had paid for the offering, passing around the ritual libation. Tachibana had been standing some distance away, gazing at the activities on stage with the illusion that time had turned backward. Sorry he had missed the Dance of Urayasu, the dance of the shrine maidens, his favorite, he hoped at least to see the little girls in their lovely shrine maiden costumes, so he went over to the office entrance, from which they ought soon to be emerging.