The Plum Rains and Other Stories

by Givens John

  Jirobei had also developed an appreciation of beauty, and he carried a collection of pretty seashells, a few loose amber beads and bits of orange coral drilled for stringing, and a selection of cloisonné trinkets. Kept separately were a pair of lead bullets that he’d dug out of his own flesh himself and retained in commemoration of the accomplishment. He had a double-handful of keepsake teeth, strips of dried skin he’d configured into ornamental knots, and the lacquered skull of a shrew-mole that had been decorated with archaic and mysterious glyphs for which he hoped one day to find a reader.

  The under-constable at Shinjuku New Station watched Jirobei’s approach. He knew what he was, and he hated seeing him. He hated the massive belly shamelessly flaunted, hated the naked arms and shoulders and buttocks and thighs, hated the flat red face with its awful scarring; but most loathsome was the pariah’s flamboyant hairstyle, the great folded excrescence of night-berry blackness grossly oiled and configured into an exaggerated display never seen before.

  You’re not permitted to stop here. The under-constable carried a stabbing spear, and he held it at a provocative angle. Not to eat nor to rest. And certainly not to sleep overnight.

  Jirobei halted in front of him. Each of the choppers and slicers in his carry-sack had been seated in a hemp-cloth pouch to muffle the rattle of metal against metal.

  I seldom sleep much, Jirobei said, forming his words with care. But I always sleep well.

  Journeys to the western mountain circuit started at Shinjuku New Station. Cheap inns and noodle stalls lined the road, as did the dray stables and brothels intended for the convenience of those heading out of the shogun’s city. Carters and palanquin bearers sprawled at their ease on roadside benches, or squatted near the metal-smith’s forge, drawn by the male fondness for watching others work; while from the windows of wineshops, pleasure girls with loose sashes and blackened teeth offered salacious observations, claimed improbable kinships, and called out promises and prices, not all of which were credible.

  I respect the law, Jirobei said. And I acknowledge the requirements of those who administer it.

  There had been a carp pond at Shinjuku New Station once. Hopeful persons had stocked it with fry in expectation of an effortless profit; but the pond had become choked with water-weeds, the young fish had died, and now all that remained was a mud puddle clotted with reeds, home to frogs and the snakes that hunted them.

  A woman passed through here two days ago, Jirobei said. Travelling alone. Did she hire a palanquin for her journey?

  What woman?

  Jirobei shifted his carry-sack to the other shoulder. A widow who is travelling alone.

  The dried reeds could have been collected and woven into the tough sheets used to surface tatami mats. But the disappointed fish-farmers didn’t harvest them, and the reeds grew to the edge of the roadway and collapsed under the accumulation of their own weight.

  No woman fit for you came this way.

  Insects rose out of the tangled reeds and danced in the slanting orange afternoon light.

  You don’t understand, Jirobei said. He crossed over to the smith’s furnace. The men lounging there came to their feet and backed away with the awkward uncertainty of disturbed sheep.

  Jirobei stood looking at the fire. Because you don’t know me, he said. Then he thrust one hand into the tossing flames at the forge mouth, and he held it there and held it there then removed it.

  The smith recoiled as if he himself had been burned, and the carters and draymen adopted the worried solemnity of men who may have to defend suppositions they no longer trusted.

  You can live three ways, Jirobei said.

  He held up his thick red hand, as if to confirm the linkage between what he did and what he experienced as being done.

  You can be told of a thing like a flame and recognise what the words mean, how they fit together, and so use your understanding as a guide. This is called the way of the learner of easy lessons. Such a person knows how to describe fire, but nothing more.

  Or you can stand close to a flame and observe it with your own eyes. Study its colour, its urgency, the heat it provides, the shapeless shape of its wavering. This is the way of the satisfied seeker. He can use flames but will never himself become part of any fire.

  But then there’s the third way. My way. To reach out and be burned by it. And only if you accept this third way can you understand the true soul of a flame. My way is the way of the traveller who always arrives. Always.

  Arrives? Arrives? The under-constable’s voice cracked like a duck pelted by gravel. You aren’t even allowed to be here!

  Jirobei came back into the road. He stopped in front of him, and the under-constable adopted a defensive crouch, his jaw working like that of a masticator struggling with a tough bit of gristle.

  You’re afraid, Jirobei said. But you should understand that if I’d decided to harm you, it would have happened already.

  The under-constable opened his mouth to speak but no sound emerged.

  You could be lying here dead on this dirt right now, Jirobei said. Your throat crushed. Your neck broken. Your head twisted off like a chrysanthemum bud. But perhaps I’ve said enough. Perhaps I don’t need to say more.

  The under-constable’s shoulders were beginning to sag. She was on foot, he said.

  Which road did she take?

  The mountain road.

  Jirobei lifted the stabbing spear out of his hands. He examined the shaft, the socket collar, the shiny steel blade, then gave it back to him. Do you have a wife? Compliment her when you get home. Touch her cheek. Praise her hair. Are you the father of a child? If so, then cuddle it tonight. Sing to it. And if your aged parents are still with you, ask them about their lives and listen to what they say, really listen. And be satisfied.

  Jirobei stood with the under-constable for a moment longer then continued on through the hamlet and out onto the road west.

  LOW CLOUDS CROWDED DOWN over Little Grebe Lake, erasing the tops of the surrounding mountains. The few passengers huddled in the ferry shelter stared glumly at the falling rain. We don’t cross in bad weather, said the senior ferryman, but an oar boy who had not yet made a trip that day agreed to take the arsonist’s widow in a small skiff.

  Faster because lighter, the boy declared. He pushed them out through the weedy shallows then applied himself to the stern oar, the thrust and pull action weaving a foam trail on the surface of the water. Some people are afraid to go out on lakes during storms, he said. Particularly if they are unable to swim.

  The widow sat huddled within an oiled-paper rain cape, gripping the gunwales with both hands. I’m unable to swim, she said.

  As am I, said the oar boy. All the more reason to get across quickly.

  But the wind rose up on its hind legs, and a pelting rain soon came striding down on them in sweeping grey sheets.

  Probably it’s not as bad as it could be, said the oar boy.

  The skiff lifted and plunged and slapped against tossing waves, and the widow had the taste on her lips of both lake water and rain.

  No standing up! The boy was struggling to maintain a steady rhythm with his stern oar. No sudden moves!

  The widow had no intention of moving at all. She peered ahead through the murky wash of lake rain but could no longer see the far shore; and when she turned to look behind her, the shore they had left was also obscured by low clouds.

  Rain at sea is said to be much worse than lake rain, said the oar boy. So I guess there’s some comfort in that.

  All around them the lake reared up into hills of water that dropped away, departing waves re-arriving, collapsing troughs splashing onto heaving surges as the sky’s rain pounded down onto the lake’s discontent, stirring up the wrath of water dragons that had begun coursing just beneath the surface in a braided frenzy of undulation.

  The boy clung to his stern oar with both arms, the blade breaking free in wave troughs and flailing uselessly. Probably it will blow over soon, he shouted to his passenger.
Probably we’ve endured the worst of it. But he was less propelling the skiff forward than trying to avoid falling out of it.

  The lake shuddered again and threw them sideways, and the skiff yawed to the point of capsizing. The sky burst open in a rage of silver needles splintering downwards, and the slashing rain took on the scent of the bellies of the dragons that went roaring in the sky too so that the widow could only stare in wonder at the world tearing itself apart all around them.

  Water crashed over the gunwales with each wave crest now. The widow took up the woven palm-leaf water scoop and began bailing. Is this right? She looked back to discover the boy squatting on his haunches and fearfully gripping the gunwales, the stern oar torn from its mounting cleat and washed away.

  The skiff lurched and wallowed. Bright teeth ripped open the low sky, and the heaving slopes of lake water blazed and crashed together like immense knuckles and elbows. Can’t you help? the widow cried. Waves splashed in faster than she could manage. The binding edge of her water scoop failed, and the thing unravelled in her hands. She flung the useless wad of palm strips over the side only to have the next wave hurl it back in on her again. The widow looked around to find something else to bail with then tore off her travel hat and began scooping out water, her face lashed with blinding rain, her hair soaked; and she was still digging like a madwoman emptying water out of a fresh grave when the skiff shuddered against a mud bank and lolled off to one side.

  They dragged the skiff ashore and rolled it over then lifted its prow onto the trunk of a wind-felled tree and crawled under it. They sat far apart and stared out at the dragons roiling the lake’s back, creases of spume splintering open with each blow.

  That stern oar is gone, the boy lamented. It will be impossible for me to return without it.

  You’d go back out there?

  Not now. He squatted with his arms wrapped around his shins. Only that I have suffered a loss.

  You have your life.

  They’ll charge me fifty coppers for that oar. Maybe more.

  THE ARSONIST’S WIDOW MIGHT have been awakened by the gentle murmur of wavelets lapping the shore, or perhaps by the fragrance of lake water shimmering in warm sunlight.

  Jirobei had hiked all night to reach her, and he watched from the edge of the forest as she crawled out from under the overturned skiff and stood gazing at the glassy surface of Little Grebe Lake. He would have liked to see it as she did – the pale green water calm and lovely under a few clouds, the darker green of the cedar forests surrounding the lake on all sides – and he would have liked to describe his own thoughts about it to her. Large vessels and small ones came and went: fishing boats and passenger ferries and cargo carriers. Among them was a double-hulled barge with an ox on board, the huge beast snubbed to the aft transom and bellowing in distress.

  Jirobei stayed within the tree shadows as the widow carried her bundle around to a sheltered cove. She pulled off her muddy robe and unwound her underskirt then waded out into the water, a small mammal stripped of its pelt. She bathed then came back and perched on a rock in the sunlight, and the sense of well-being he felt was like that of a proprietor.

  Jirobei waited until she had put on a clean robe and set off again then went down to the lake himself. Weeds torn out by the storm were aligned in bunches along the waterline like crops harvested. He rinsed his robe the way she had done then took off his loincloth and rinsed it too. He hung both garments on the same willow branches she had used then waded out into the lake and washed himself. The stern oar bobbed in the debris of a backwash cove. He dragged it ashore then chose an outcropping of rock near the overturned skiff and occupied it, his immense red body heating in the morning sun.

  The oar boy emerged from under the skiff and saw him. He didn’t know what his presence meant but he knew it meant something. What do you want from me?

  Jirobei strolled over to where the boy waited. He grasped the near edge of the long, slender boat and with a powerful heave flipped it back onto its keel. He dragged the prow around so that it was facing out into the lake.

  You can’t just go around naked.

  Jirobei retrieved the stern oar then laid it against the flange of its mounting bracket but did not bother with the shredded ropes that hung there, for the flange block had worked loose and would not support the weight of the oar without being pounded back into place.

  They’ll be wondering if you drowned, Jirobei said.

  I don’t know what you want.

  Jirobei studied him. What do you want?

  Nothing.

  Not to go home?

  To go home then.

  Your wife will be worried.

  The oar boy looked away, frightened. I don’t have a wife.

  Your mother then.

  What do you want from me?

  Jirobei continued to observe him. Where’s she going?

  The boy glanced at him then quickly lowered his eyes. Who?

  Your passenger. From yesterday.

  I don’t know.

  Don’t say that to me.

  The oar boy couldn’t look at the huge pariah’s naked body, his immense belly hanging out in a great swollen mass of muscle and fat, his chest and shoulders and thighs spangled and hatched all over with pit-scars and ridge-welts from stab wounds and slash wounds, like a map charting the impact chance had inflicted on him. There was a storm, he said. We just washed up…

  You just washed up.

  The oar boy stood with his hands dangling. There’s a small landing. Farther up the shore. It leads to the road into the barrier mountains. We couldn’t find it because of the storm.

  All right. Jirobei gazed out over the placid green surface of the lake. Get a rock.

  What?

  Get a rock. A large one.

  A rock?

  A rock. One about the size of your head. Jirobei was watching him now. And bring it to me.

  THE ARSONIST’S WIDOW CONFRONTED Jirobei late the following day. He had set up a solitary bivouac beside a wayfarers’ shrine, and he told her he’d been waiting for her.

  You didn’t know I’d come looking for you.

  I knew you’d relent.

  You didn’t know anything of the kind.

  Jirobei had stripped off his robe and hung it on a protruding pine branch then seated himself in the middle of the road like a massive and objectionable Buddha. But you did come. Here you are.

  Because you aren’t allowed, said the arsonist’s widow. So I guess what I need to do is say that to you.

  And haven’t you?

  So you hear it.

  Jirobei’s body in the gathering darkness was coated with a coppery sheen of perspiration, and his immense black coif was so heavy with oil that it hung down onto the swollen muscle and fat of the back of his neck and left greasy streaks there.

  You came back because you realised you were wrong about me, Jirobei said.

  The widow deposited her gear inside the wayfarers’ shine but settled herself on the entryway stoop, as if the huge creature sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road was just another feature of the landscape. All right, she said. I’m listening.

  Jirobei told her that her husband had committed a serious offence. For that reason, he did not regret cutting him. To try to escape from a debt was your husband’s karma, Jirobei said. As was the failure of his attempt. And his death.

  It was natural, Jirobei said. Like blossoms falling. Like the way green shoots push up through last year’s withered grasses.

  Jirobei told her it was his obligation to preserve public order, but he knew that at times, he too yielded to moments of excess. It had therefore occurred to him that the manner of her husband’s death was an injustice to her. He said he wished to make amends.

  And that’s why you’re following me?

  You came back for me, Jirobei said.

  To be done with it!

  Jirobei had two rice cakes topped with wedges of pressed mackerel, and he gave them both to the arsonist’s widow. He
said he had heard doctrines he believed worth considering. It was not for him to speak of such matters, but unless she had objections he would. He himself was of course a non-human and therefore judged to be a creature without a soul. But he believed that to be true of all beings. There was no individual soul. The idea itself was an error. Persons, pariahs, animals, fish, insects all occupied a series of temporary expediencies. Flow was granular. Each instance mutated into the next. There was no linkage connecting occurrences together, other than the consistency of the fact of transformation. That alone was the bond. To hold otherwise was to live in delusion. He told her that some believers credited the persistence of the soul as the mechanism that enabled the chain of rebirths from life to life, but in his view this too was mistaken. Every thing links to every other thing as it arises within the irrevocability of itself. No separate component is required.

  The widow had finished one rice cake, and she sat with the second held in both hands. She said she found such ideas difficult to understand. She asked if he had met others who shared his views.

  All men to me are other, Jirobei said. Sometimes he tried to find a place to meet, but in his heart he knew that any such attempt would be futile.

  Jirobei told her that in the course of his duties, he encountered fearful persons who would not see him as he drew nearer, who would not accept his presence even when he was very close. My breath touches their cheeks and my lips brush their skin, but they in their terror can’t fulfil their obligations to themselves.

  The widow finished her second rice cake. Because they’re afraid, she said.

  But you came back. Didn’t that mean she wasn’t afraid of him?