The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  When he finally got into bed, he didn’t even bother to remove his sash, much less his robe. Still fully dressed, he curled himself into a ball and quickly backed, feet first, into his bedding. As soon as his arms found the sleeves in his upper quilt, he pressed his hands to the mattress beneath him and lowered himself onto his pillow. Unlike you or me, the holy man slept facedown.

  Before long, he stopped stirring and seemed to be falling asleep. As I had told him many times in the train, I find it hard to get to sleep before the night grows late; and so I asked him, begging like a child, to take pity on me and tell me about some of the interesting things he had experienced on his many pilgrimages.

  He nodded and added that since middle age he had always slept facedown, but he was still wide-awake. Like me, he too had difficulty falling asleep. “So you want to hear a story? Then listen to what I’m about to tell you,” he said. “And remember that what you hear from a monk isn’t always a lecture or a sermon.” It was only later that I learned he was none other than the renowned and revered Monk Shūchō of the Rikumin Temple.

  3

  “The owners of this inn mentioned that someone else might join us here tonight,” the monk began. “A man from Wakasa, same as you. He travels around and sells lacquerware. He’s young, but I know him to be a good, serious fellow, quite unlike a young man I once met when making my way through the mountains of Hida. This other person was a Toyama medicine peddler whom I happened to run into at a teahouse in the foothills. What a disagreeable, difficult fellow!”

  I intended to make it all the way to the pass that day, and I had set out from my inn at about three o’clock in the morning. I covered fifteen miles or more while it was still cool. But by the time I made it to the teahouse, the morning mist had burned off, and it was starting to get hot.

  I had pushed myself at a fast pace, and my throat was as parched as the road beneath my feet. I wanted to get something to drink right away but was told the kettle wasn’t boiling yet.

  Of course, there was no reason to expect the teahouse to be ready for business, since so few pass by on such mountain paths. In a place as isolated as that, smoke from the hearth rarely rises while the morning-glory blossoms are still open. As I waited, I noticed an inviting brook running in front of the stool on which I had taken a seat. I was about to scoop up a handful of water from a bucket nearby when something occurred to me.

  Disease spreads quickly in the summer months, and I had just seen powdered lime sprinkled over the ground at the village called Tsuji.

  “Excuse me,” I called to the girl in the teahouse. I felt a bit awkward asking but forced myself to inquire. “Is this water from your well?”

  “It’s from the river,” she said.

  Her answer alarmed me. “Down the mountain I saw signs of an epidemic,” I said. “I was just wondering if this brook comes from over by Tsuji.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she replied simply, as though I had nothing to worry about.

  I should have been happy to hear her answer, but listen—someone else was already at the teahouse. The young medicine peddler I just mentioned had been resting there for quite some time. He was one of those vulgar pill salesmen. You’ve seen them dressed in an unlined, striped kimono, a cheap sash, and the obligatory gold watch dangling in front. Leggings and breeches, straw sandals, a square medicine chest tied to the back with a pale yellowish green cotton cloth. Add an umbrella or an oilskin slicker, folded up and tied to the pack with a flat Sanada string, and there you have it, the typical traveling salesman.

  They all look the same—that serious, knowing look on their faces. But as soon as they get to their lodgings for the night, they change into loud, large-patterned robes. And with their sashes loosely tied, they sip cheap wine and try to get their feet onto the maids’ soft laps.

  “Hey, Baldy,” he called, insulting me from the very start. “Forgive me for asking this, but I need to know something. Here you are. You know you’re never going to make it with the ladies, so you shave your head and become a monk, right? So why worry about dying? That’s a little odd, don’t you think? The truth is, you’re no better than the rest of us. Just as I thought. Take a look at him, miss. That man’s still attached to this floating world.” The two looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  I was a young man at that time, and my face burned red with shame. I froze there with the scoop of water still in my hands.

  “What are you waiting for? Go ahead, drink till you drown. If you come down with something, I’ll give you some of my medicine. That’s why I’m here. Right, miss? It’s going to cost you, though. My Mankintan’s three sen a packet. It may be ‘the gift of the gods.’ But if you want it, you buy it. I haven’t done anything bad enough to make me want to give it away. But maybe we can fix that. How about it, girl? Maybe I should have my way with you.” He patted the young woman on the back.

  I was shocked by the man’s lewd behavior and quickly got away from there. Of course, someone of my age and profession has no business going on about the seduction of teahouse maids, but since it’s an important part of the story . . .

  4

  I was so furious that I rushed down the road that led through some rice paddies in the foothills. I had gone only a short distance when the path rose steeply. Looking to the side, I could see it going up the side of the mountain like a rounded earthen bridge. I had just started the climb, my eyes fixed upward upon my goal, when the medicine peddler I had encountered earlier came hurrying along to overtake me.

  He didn’t have anything to say this time. Even if he had, I doubt I would have responded. Thoroughly accustomed to looking down on other people, the peddler made a point of giving me a contemptuous glance as he passed by. He pressed forward to the top of a small hill, where he stopped, holding his opened umbrella in one hand. Then he disappeared down the other side.

  I followed him, climbing the steep slope until I made it to the top. Then I proceeded ahead.

  The peddler had already made it down the other side and was standing on the road, looking this way and that. I suspected he might be planning some mischief and was on guard as I continued in his footsteps. When I reached the spur, I could see why he had stopped.

  The road forked at that point. One of the two paths was very steep and headed directly up the mountain. It was overgrown with grass on both sides and wound around a huge cypress tree four, maybe even five, spans around, then disappeared behind a number of jutting boulders that were piled one on top of the other. My guess was that this wasn’t the one to take. The wide, gently sloping path that had brought me this far was, no doubt, the main road, and if I just stayed on it for another five miles or so, it would surely take me into the mountains and eventually to the pass.

  But what was this? The cypress I mentioned arched like a rainbow over the deserted road, extending into the endless sky above the rice paddies. The earth had crumbled away from its base, exposing an impressive tangle of countless eel-like roots; and from there a stream of water gushed out and flowed over the ground, right down the middle of the road I had decided to take, flooding the entire area before me.

  It was a wonder the water hadn’t made a lake of the rice paddies. Thundering like rapids, the torrent formed a river that stretched for more than two hundred yards, bordered on the far side by a grove. I was glad to see a line of rocks that crossed the water like a row of stepping-stones. Apparently, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to put them there.

  The water wasn’t so deep that I would have to strip down and wade. Still, it seemed a bit too difficult to be the main road, as even a horse would have had a hard time of it.

  The medicine peddler, too, had hesitated because of the situation. But then he made his decision and started climbing the hill to the right, where he disappeared behind the cypress tree. When he reappeared, he was five feet or so above me. “Hey, this is the road to Matsumoto,” he called down, then sauntered another five or six steps. Half-hidden behind one of the huge boulders, h
e called out in a jeering tone. “Watch out or the tree spirits’ll get you! They don’t give a damn if it’s still daylight!” Then he entered the shade of the boulders and eventually disappeared into the grass growing farther up the slope. After a while, the tip of his umbrella reappeared higher up the mountain, but then, just as it reached the same level as the treetops, it disappeared again into the undergrowth.

  That was when I heard someone behind me. I turned to see a farmer hopping across the stones laid out across the flowing water, encouraging himself with a relaxed-sounding dokkoisho. He had a short reed skirt tied around his waist and carried a shoulder pole in one hand.

  5

  Needless to say, from the time I left the teahouse until that moment, I hadn’t met anyone but the medicine peddler. As the peddler continued on his way, I paused to consult my map—the one I was telling you about earlier. It occurred to me that even though the grass-grown path seemed like the wrong road, the peddler, who was a professional traveler after all, ought to know his way around these mountains. “Excuse me,” I said to the farmer.

  “Yes,” he replied. “How may I help you?” Mountain people are especially polite when talking with monks, as you know.

  “Sorry to bother you about such an obvious matter,” I said. “But this is the main road, isn’t it?”

  “You’re going to Matsumoto?” he asked. “Then yes, this is the right road. We’ve had a lot of rain this year, and the whole place has turned into a river. But this is it.”

  “Is it like this all the way?”

  “Oh, no. Just what you see here. It’s easy enough to cross. The water goes over to that grove there. On the other side, it’s a regular road. Up to the mountains, it’s wide enough for two carts to pass each other with no problem. A doctor once had his mansion in that grove there, and this place, believe it or not, used to be a village. A flood came through thirteen years ago and washed everything away. Many people died. Since you’re a monk, sir, maybe you could pray for the dead as you pass through.”

  The good man gave me more information than I had asked for. Now that I had the details, I was comforted to know which one was the right road. Yet at the same time, his instructions meant that someone else had gone the wrong way.

  “Then may I ask where this other road goes?” I inquired about the left fork that the medicine peddler had taken.

  “That’s the old road people used to take fifty years ago. It’ll get you to Shū shō all right, and it cuts off a good seventeen miles overall. But you can’t get through anymore. Just last year, a family on pilgrimage went that way by mistake. It was terrible. They were poor as beggars. But since every soul is precious, we felt we should try to find them. We got a search party together—three local constables and twelve people from the village—and went into the mountains to bring them back out. Sir, I wouldn’t get too ambitious and decide to take that shortcut. Even if the longer road is more tiring and makes you spend a night under the stars, I wouldn’t take the chance. Well, take care now and have a good trip.”

  I said goodbye to the farmer and started across the line of stepping-stones that had been set in the river. But then I stopped. What would become of the medicine peddler?

  I doubted the old road was nearly as bad as the farmer had described. But if it were true, it would be like letting the man die before my very eyes. Anyway, as one who had renounced the world, I had no business worrying about whether I could find an inn before nightfall or not. And so I decided to go and bring the medicine peddler back. Even if I didn’t find him and ended up taking the old road all the way, it wouldn’t be as bad as all that. This wasn’t the season for wild dogs prowling or for forest spirits lurking about. “So why not?” I thought. When I turned around, I saw that the kind farmer had already disappeared from sight.

  “I’ll do it,” I said to myself and started up the steep path. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a hero or that I was getting ahead of myself. Judging from what I’ve just told you, you might think I’m some sort of enlightened saint. But the truth is that I’m really a coward. I didn’t even dare drink the river water. So you’re probably wondering why I decided to take the dangerous path.

  To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have cared that much about someone with whom I’d exchanged only a few words of greeting. But because the peddler had been such a disagreeable person, I felt I would be purposely letting him take the wrong road. In short, my conscience made me do it.

  The monk Shūchō, still lying facedown, brought his hands together in prayer. “I just didn’t think letting him die would be worthy of the nenbutsu I chant,” he added.

  6

  “So, listen to this.”

  I walked past the cypress tree, then made my way through the boulders, and ended up on the trail above them. Passing through a stand of trees, I entered a path in the thick grass that seemed to go on forever.

  Before I knew it, I had climbed the mountain and was approaching another. For a while a meadow opened up, and the path sloped gently and became even wider than the main road I had just left—easily wide enough to accommodate a daimyō’s procession. The two roads were running parallel to each other. One was slightly to the east and the other situated a bit to the west, with the mountain in the middle.

  Even in this broad plain, though, I could see no sign of the medicine peddler, not even a speck the size of a poppy seed. Every once in a while, a small insect would fly across the baking sky. I felt even more insecure, walking in the open where everything was empty and unfamiliar. Of course, I had heard about travel in the Hida Mountains before—how few inns there were along the way and how if you got millet-rice for dinner you were doing well. I was prepared for the worst, and because my legs were strong, I kept up the pace without flagging. As I made my way, the mountains began closing in until I was walled in on both sides and the trail before me rose steeply.

  From here I knew I’d be crossing the notorious Amō Pass, and so I did what I could to prepare myself for the climb. Readjusting my straw sandals, I gasped for breath in the blistering heat.

  Years later I heard about a wind cave in the pass that sends air all the way to the Rendai Temple in Mino; but at that time, of course, I had no desire to go see it. I was so intent on climbing that I was oblivious to the scenery and to whatever natural wonders might lie along the way. I didn’t even know if it was cloudy or sunny. Concentrating only on getting to the top, I crawled up the incline.

  Now this is the part I really want to tell you. You see, the trail got much worse. Not only did it seem impossible for a human being to climb, but there was something even more horrible: snakes. They were buried in the grass, their heads on one side of the trail and their tails on the other, writhing like bridges across my path. The first time I encountered one, my breath rushed from my lungs and my knees gave way beneath me. I crumpled to the ground, my sedge hat still on my head and my walking staff still in my hand.

  I’ve always been afraid, or maybe I should say terrified, of snakes. That first time, the creature did me the favor of slowly slithering away. It raised its head, then disappeared into the grass.

  I got to my feet and continued ahead another five or six hundred yards, only to find another snake sunning its belly, its tail and head also hidden in the grass on either side of the path.

  I shouted and jumped back, and this one, too, slithered away. But the third snake I encountered was in no hurry to move. You should have seen how big around it was! I guessed that if the thing started crawling, it would take a full five minutes before its tail finally appeared. Having no other recourse, I forced myself to step over its thick body. My stomach turned, and I felt as though my hair and all my pores had turned into scales. I closed my eyes and imagined my face turning as pale as the creature’s belly.

  I could feel myself breaking out in a cold sweat. My legs lost their strength. Barely able to keep my feet under me, I stumbled down the trail, my heart pounding with fear. And again, another snake appeared.

  This one had
been cut in half. All that remained was the length from belly to tail. The wound was tinged with blue, and, as the snake twitched on the path, a yellow fluid ran from where it had been severed.

  That was when I finally panicked and started running back the other way. But then I came to my senses and remembered the other snakes I had just passed. No doubt they were lying in wait for me. And yet I would rather be killed than jump over another one. I knew in my heart that if the farmer had said, even in passing, that there were snakes like this on the old road, I wouldn’t have taken this way, even though it might have meant suffering in hell for abandoning the medicine peddler. Baked by the sun, I felt tears come to my eyes. “Save me, Merciful Buddha!” Even now the thought of that experience makes me shudder.

  The monk pressed his hand to his forehead.

  7

  But losing control wasn’t going to help, so I did my best to regain my composure. It was not the time to be turning back. I would only run into the severed body of the dead snake, about three feet long. This time I left the path and walked deep into the grass in order to get around it. And as I did, I panicked again, fearing that the other half would appear and coil itself around me. My legs grew stiff, and I stumbled over a stone. Apparently, that’s when I twisted my knee.

  From there I had to limp along the trail as best I could. I knew that if I collapsed on the road, I would be killed by the steamy heat. So I made up my mind that I was going to make it and pressed on.

  The hot stench of the grass was menacing. And underfoot I was constantly stepping on what felt like large birds’ eggs strewn about.