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

by J. Thomas Rimer

  DECEMBER 5

  Evening. The two of us were alone. The practical nurse had gone to eat dinner. The winter sun had already dropped behind the western mountains. The slanting rays of sunshine crept into the slowly chilling room and suddenly brightened it. At the sick one’s bedside I leaned my legs against the heater and bent over the book I had in my hand. The sick one spoke suddenly.

  “Oh, Father,” she called out weakly.

  Startled, I looked up at her. I saw that her eyes were shining. Pretending nonchalantly not to have caught her feeble words, I asked, “Did you say something just now?”

  She made no answer at first, but her eyes gleamed even more brightly. “On the lower left side of that mountain there’s a sunny place, isn’t there?” she said at last, decisively, and pointed with her finger from the bed. Then as if trying to force out something that was difficult to say, she placed her fingertip to her mouth and added, “There’s an exact silhouette of my dad’s profile; just now you can see it, don’t you see it now?”

  The low mountain seemed to be the one she was speaking of. I recognized it right away by her pointing, but all I could make out were the folds of the mountains set out by the slanting rays of the sun.

  “It’s gone. Only the forehead remains. . . .”

  And then at last I could see something that looked like her father’s forehead there in the folds of the mountain. It did suggest her father’s massive head. “Through the silhouette she’s searching for her father in the depths of her heart, isn’t she? With all her strength she feels for her father, she calls for her father. . . .”

  In a moment darkness covered the mountains completely. All the shadows disappeared.

  “Do you want to go home?” I blurted out the first words that came to mind.

  I looked uneasily into her eyes. She stared back almost coldly and then suddenly averted her eyes.

  “Yes, sort of, I’d like to go home.” she said in a hoarse, almost inaudible voice.

  Biting my lips, I got up quietly from the bed and went toward the window. Behind me she spoke in a slightly shaky voice. “Forgive me. Just now, for a moment . . . I’ll get over the feeling right away.”

  I stood at the window with my arms folded, saying nothing. Darkness had set in at the base of the mountains. A dim light lingered on the summits. Suddenly I was seized by a choking fear. I turned abruptly to the sick one. She had both hands over her face. I was filled with an uneasy feeling that something was slipping from us. I raced back to the bed and pulled her hands off her face. She did not resist.

  The high forehead, the eyes shining peacefully, the clenched mouth completely unchanged—more than ever beyond reproach. . . . I had to think my fright at nothing was rather childish. I felt my strength suddenly drain away, and dropping to my knees I buried my face in the edge of the bed. I stayed like that, pressing my face down tightly. I felt the sick one’s hand lightly stroking my hair. . . .

  The interior of the room grew dark.

  In the Valley of the Shadow of Death

  DECEMBER 1, 1936, IN K——VILLAGE

  The village, which I had not seen for about three and a half years, lay buried in snow.2 Snow had been piling up for a week, and only this morning had it finally stopped. A young village woman whom I had asked to help with the cooking and her younger brother loaded my baggage onto a small boy’s sled and pulled it to the mountain hut where I would be spending the winter. Walking along behind the sled, I kept slipping and sliding over and over again. The snow, shaded in the valley, was frozen hard.

  The hut I had rented was a little north of the village, and here and there in the small valley foreigners had long since built villas. Mine had to be the most remote. Hadn’t the foreigners who came to spend the summer here given this place the name “Happy Valley?” Where was there a Valley of Happiness in this lonely, deserted place? I looked past one forsaken villa after another, all buried in snow, as I trudged up the valley lagging behind the other two. Exactly the opposite name sprang to my lips. Hesitating to say the words, I retracted the thought, but then changing my mind, I spoke out. “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” Well, that name was appropriate for this valley, at least for someone like me who was going to live a lonely widower’s life here in the midst of winter. As I was thinking over these things, we finally reached the last cottage, which I had rented. The house was thatched with bark; it had an excuse for a small veranda attached, and the surrounding snow was covered with strange footprints. While the girl was opening up the shuttered house, I learned from the little boy that these footprints were rabbit, those were squirrel, these were pheasant, and so on.

  Standing on the veranda that was half buried in snow, I looked around. When I looked down the shaded valley we had just come up, it seemed like a nice, snug little corner of a valley. The figure of the little boy riding his sled alone back down through the valley appeared and disappeared among the leafless trees. I watched until the charming figure had finally disappeared into the barren woods below. When I had finished looking around the valley and I thought things had been arranged inside the hut, I went in. The walls were covered with cedar bark; the ceiling was more rustic than you can imagine, but it was not a bad feeling at all. I went right up to the second floor, and the beds, chairs, and everything were fitted for two people. Just for us—you and me. Saying that, it was truly the mountain hut that I had dreamed about of old, where you and I could live a secluded life together.

  Evening. When dinner preparations were finished, I sent the girl back to the village. Alone then, I pulled a big table up to the hearth and laid out there my writing things and everything for eating. I happened to notice hanging over my head a calendar set to September. I stood up to tear off the old pages and mark today’s date. I opened my notebook after just one year.

  DECEMBER 2

  Blizzard winds blow incessantly from mountain regions to the north. Yesterday Mount Asama could be seen so clearly that you felt you could hold it in your hands. This morning it is totally covered in snow clouds; a violent storm is raging there. Tangles of snow swirl into the mountain village, dancing ceaselessly even when the sun occasionally breaks through. The cloud front edged suddenly over the valley, but blue sky can be seen clearly over the mountain ranges to the south beyond the valley. A fierce snowstorm obscures the entire valley for a spell. No sooner did you see it, though, than the sun was out again.

  I went to the window and looked out at the ever-changing scene in the valley, and then I returned to the fireside. Thus I spent a restless day.

  Around noon the girl from the village arrived in the snow. She was wearing only Japanese tabi socks on her feet and was carrying a furoshiki-cloth-wrapped bundle on her back. Her face and hands looked frozen, but to me she looked all right, rather meek and taciturn. As I did yesterday, I sent her home as soon as the meals were prepared. Then as if another day were over, I stayed close to the fireside, doing nothing but watch the firewood crackle and burn by itself, fanned by the wind.

  So it became night. When I had finished my cold meal alone, I felt a bit more at peace. The snow appeared to have stopped without piling up much, but now the wind began to blow. The fire died down, and as its noise subsided, the wind could be heard now and then tearing at the bare branches of the nearby trees in the valley outside.

  About an hour later, feeling a little dizzy, as I was unaccustomed to the fire, I went out of the hut into the open air. I walked around for a little in the total darkness, but when my face got cold, I headed back to the hut. At that moment I noticed for the first time in the light leaking out from inside that a fine snow was swirling ceaselessly all around me. I went in, dried off my dampened body, and went to the fire. As I did so, something recurred to my memory, and I forgot to keep drying myself. It was last year just about this time late one night when the snow was swirling around the mountain sanitarium. How many times I had stood at the sanitarium doorway, waiting impatiently for the arrival of your father, whom I had summoned by telegram.
He arrived at last about midnight. When you spotted your father, something almost like a smile flitted across your lips. Father looked at your emaciated face but said nothing. Then he looked anxiously toward me. I pretended not to notice and continued unconsciously looking only at you. Suddenly I thought you were mumbling something, and I went to your side and heard you say to me in a weak almost inaudible voice, “There’s snow on your hair.” . . . Now, crouching alone by the fire, I am moved by the sudden memory. Without thinking, I put my hand to my hair. It happens to be wet and cold. I hadn’t noticed that before I touched it. . . .

  DECEMBER 5

  The next few days the weather was indescribably fine. In the morning, sunlight flooded the veranda; there was no wind and it was warm. In the mornings I took a small table and chair onto the veranda, and I ate my breakfast looking at the valley all covered in snow. To be here alone like this was truly more than I deserved, I thought as I ate my breakfast. Suddenly I saw at the base of a leafless shrub before me a pheasant. Then there were two, rustling around and foraging for food in the snow.

  “Hey. Come here. The pheasants have come.”

  I imagined you were in the hut. I lowered my voice as I spoke, holding my breath while I stared at the pheasants. I worried lest your careless footsteps make a noise. . . .

  At that moment the snow slid off a roof somewhere with a sudden burst that echoed through the valley. Surprised by the crash, I was startled, too, by the two pheasants flying up from my feet. At that instant I felt your presence beside me, so palpably that it hurt. You stood by my side, as was your custom, and silently watched me with your big eyes.

  In the afternoon I went down from the hut and walked around the snow-covered village for the first time. I had known this town only from summer into fall. Now, with everything covered with snow, the forest, the roads, the boarded-up villas, everything that should seem familiar awoke no memories of how they were before. Walking along the road I used to like to walk on, the road with the waterwheel on it, I found that a small Catholic church had been built without my knowing it. The beautiful plain wooden structure, with already-blackened wooden siding under a snow-covered peaked roof, was a striking sight. The whole neighborhood was unfamiliar to my memory. I waded into the deep snow in the woods where I often took you walking. There I saw a silver fir tree that I thought I remembered. As I approached staring at the tree, I heard the shrill cry of a bird from its midst. While I stood there, a completely unfamiliar bluish green bird flew up in fright, its wings flapping, but it immediately landed on another branch to challenge me with its shrill cries. Reluctantly, I walked away.

  DECEMBER 7

  Next to the meeting hall in the wintry woods I heard a cuckoo calling twice. It seemed far away, and then again it seemed very close, making me look into the middle of a leafless thicket, up into the bare branches overhead, and at the sky above, but the call was not repeated.

  I thought that maybe I had misheard the noise after all. Instead, though, the leafless thicket, the bare branches, the sky above, flashed back vividly in my memory to their summer aspect.

  I was there, although I knew that nothing remained for me, that all had been lost from what I held in this village that summer three years ago.

  DECEMBER 10

  These days, for some reason, no vivid memories of you have recurred. To be alone as I am is almost unbearable. In the morning the firewood that I have laid in the hearth simply will not burn. At last I become impatient and stir the wood violently. Only then do I feel you, urgently attentive there beside me. Recovering my spirits, I stack the wood again.

  In the afternoon I think I will go out for a walk again in the village. I stroll down the valley, and because the snow has been melting, the road is very bad. My shoes become heavy with mud, and it is hard to walk. I must turn back for home in midcourse. The snow has frozen hard in the valley now, and although I am unexpectedly relieved, it takes my breath away to climb back up to the house. There, to cheer my feelings of depression, I quote to myself from the haze of my memory the verse from Psalms: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.” The verse leaves me with an empty feeling.

  DECEMBER 12

  In the evening as I passed in front of the little church on the waterwheel road, a caretaker was diligently spreading coal cinders over the slushy walk. Standing next to the man, I asked nonchalantly if the church was open all winter.

  “We’ll close for the year in another two or three days,” the man replied, briefly stopping in his scattering of ash. “Last year we were open all winter, but this year the priest is going to Matsumoto.”

  “Are there church members here in the winter?” I asked bluntly.

  “Hardly any, . . . but the priest says mass by himself every day.”

  While we were standing there talking, the priest, whom I took to be German, returned from wherever he had gone. Caught by the affable priest, I had to ask him something, even though his Japanese was rather inadequate. Although there may have been some misunderstanding, I ended up being encouraged to come to mass the next day, a Sunday.

  DECEMBER 13, SUNDAY

  About 9 A.M. I went to the church, expecting nothing. In front of the altar with its small lighted candles the priest had started saying mass along with a single deacon. I myself, neither a believer nor anything and not knowing what to do except not to make any noise, sat down on a straw seat in the rear. When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I saw a middle-aged woman dressed in black and crouching in the shadow of a column in the very front row of the church, which I had taken to be empty of believers. As I noticed that she continued to kneel there, I suddenly felt the piercing cold of the church interior.

  The mass lasted for nearly an hour. As it was ending, I saw the woman take out a handkerchief and hold it to her face. I did not understand why she did that. The mass finally ended and the priest, without turning toward the parishioners, withdrew to a small room at the side. The woman remained unmoving. I alone left the church.

  It was a light cloudy day. The snow was melting in the village as I walked around with no particular objective but with a continuing feeling of dissatisfaction. I wandered into the field with the white birch conspicuous at the center, where I had often accompanied you when you went to paint. In fond memory I reached out to touch the tree, its base still buried in leftover snow, and I stood there until my fingers began to freeze. However, I could scarcely revive the memory of your appearance at that time. Finally I wandered off, indescribably lonely as I walked through the bare-branched trees straight up the valley and back to my cabin.

  Panting breathlessly, I sat down on the floor boards of the veranda. Suddenly in my fretful state I felt you close to me. Pretending not to notice, I rested my chin on my hands. You were livelier than ever before—indeed, so lively that I thought I could feel your hand on my shoulder.

  “Dinner is ready.”

  The young woman from the village had been awaiting my return there in the cabin, and she called me to my dinner. Returning to reality and feeling that I would have liked to be left to myself a little longer, I entered the house with an unusually gloomy expression. Without saying a word to the girl, I sat down alone as usual to my meal.

  Near evening and still feeling irritated, I sent the girl home. A little later I regretted my actions and I went casually out onto the veranda. Then, just as before (but this time without you) I gazed down the snow-covered valley, where I noticed someone coming slowly up the valley through the trees in my direction, looking this way and that. I wondered where the man was going as I continued to stare, and it was the priest looking for my cabin.

  DECEMBER 14

  Yesterday evening I visited the church, as I had promised the priest. The church would close tomorrow and he would be leaving at once for Matsumoto, the priest told me while from time to time giving instructions to the caretaker, who was packing things up. He had hoped to gain a convert in this village, and
he kept reflecting on how much he regretted leaving the place. I recalled immediately the middle-aged, German-looking woman I had seen yesterday in the church. I started to ask the priest about her, but he seemed to misunderstand, and I sensed that maybe he was talking about me.

  Our strange conversation was running at cross-purposes, and it stumbled to a stop. We sat there in silence beside the overly hot fire and looked out the window at the little tatters of clouds flying past in the bright windy but wintry sky.

  “Such a beautiful sky you wouldn’t see except on such a cold and windy day,” the priest said casually.

  “Yes, truly, without a cold day and a wind like this,” I parroted him, feeling his casually spoken words oddly touch my heart.

  After being with the priest for about an hour, I started for home, where I received a small package. Rilke’s “Requiem,” which I had ordered long ago, was among two or three volumes that had arrived after being forwarded around with several address tags attached.

  That evening when I was ready for bed, I settled down by the hearth, and as I listened to the sound of the wind, I began to read Rilke’s “Requiem.”

  DECEMBER 17

  Still snowing. Since morning it has continued with hardly a break. Before my eyes as I watched, the valley has become all white again. We are in the depths of winter. All day today I have stayed by the hearth, going occasionally to the window to look carelessly at the snow-filled valley, then returning to the hearth to continue reading “Requiem.” I felt so strongly how it resembled the regret in my timid heart that I had not stopped seeking you, that even now I could not leave you quietly in your death.