“Every town has a place to stay. Besides, the train stops here. It’s only one night, I’m sure you can put up with one of those inns salespeople stay in, even a dirty travel lodge.”
Ineko’s mother nodded. “Of course, I’ll be fine.”
They would probably have the best shot at finding an inn if they crossed the small bridge downstream and went into town, to the area around the station. Already, the sand at the river’s mouth had taken on the colors of a winter evening. Those birds that had flown noiselessly overhead were nowhere to be seen now, and the faint gray horizon was shrouded by a vague, madder red haze. Whether the sky had bled downward or the placid sea had risen was unclear; either way, there was no border. The meager flow of the river emptying into the ocean, too, was a dull color.
Ineko’s mother was just stepping onto the small earthen bridge that led into town when she gasped. A boy who recalled the brilliant, deep yellow of a dandelion had scampered past. She turned to watch as he ran off. So did Kuno.
“Was that a human boy?” Ineko’s mother murmured, seemingly to herself.
“What do you mean, Mother?” Kuno said, startled.
“Could there be fairies in this town? Did you see his face?”
“Don’t be absurd. He had on an ordinary elementary school uniform, shoes and all. He looked perfectly normal.”
“I’d like to steal him and take him home,” the mother said, staring after him as he ran off upstream. “I guess that would mean I’d kidnapped him.”
“It would. I doubt you could kidnap a boy his age anyway. He looked sharp.”
“How about adopting him?”
“Maybe you could do that.” Kuno gazed at her, puzzled. “What’s gotten into you, all of a sudden? You have Ineko. She and I can live with you, even after we’re married.”
“I felt lonely, all of a sudden. I think that boy must have been a spirit of the river or the ocean or something who came to plant that loneliness in me and then ran off.”
This made no sense to Kuno, but it didn’t seem worth pursuing. She would feel better in the morning, he assumed, after she got some sleep. He thought of the boy’s eyes looking out under those lovely eyebrows, seeming to absorb everything; his innocent lips, which looked as if they could brush away a life of suffering and disease with a single touch; the voice that, he felt sure, with all the beauty of a hymn would burrow into your heart.
Still, that Ineko’s mother should be drawn so forcefully to the boy after glimpsing him on the bank hinted at a loneliness in her, a sorrow, beyond words. The thought pained him. For the first time, he realized that the intensity of his concern for Ineko had prevented him from paying much attention to her mother. He’d only been thinking of her as she related to Ineko.
“I don’t care if he was a fairy. There are lots of old stories about people living with fairies, but nowadays you’re lucky if you can meet one on the street. You really saw him, Mr. Kuno?”
“Of course. He was just a boy, in primary school, maybe his first year in middle school,” Kuno said. The thought occurred to him that maybe she had some mental issues of her own, just like Ineko.
“You like pretty boys, Mother, is that it?” he teased.
“Hardly.” The mother grimaced. “I’ve always disliked children, boys and girls. Even their smell gets to me.”
“At his age he might not have that sort of scent.”
“That’s beside the point. He was a fairy. Fairies have hands and feet just like anyone else. I’m surprised you saw him, actually. If only Ineko could see him — I bet he’d cure her.”
“Maybe that’s why I saw him, then — we’re connected.”
“You didn’t find him otherworldly?”
“The same question again. He was beautiful, but he was a human child. Would you like me to chase after him and call him back?”
Ineko’s mother shook her head. “I don’t suppose he could have been on his way home after visiting someone at the Ikuta Clinic.”
“Surely not.” Kuno looked disbelievingly at Ineko’s mother. “He’s a local. Towns like this always have one or two unusually beautiful children.”
“Why is that?”
“I have no idea. Some odd effect of having old families around, maybe.”
“Not fairies?”
“Not fairies. Though if you think that’s what they are, perhaps that’s the truth.”
“It’s a small town, Mr. Kuno. I can ask at the inn if they know him, once we find one.” The mother was still unwilling to give up. “I bet if I did, they’d just frown and say he didn’t sound familiar.”
“Meaning your theory is right — he really was a spirit of the river or the ocean? Next time I see him, I’ll grab him for you, I promise. I’m not sure you can even grab a fairy, but at least it won’t count as kidnapping the way it would with a human boy. I must say, though, Mother — you sure come out with some peculiar things. Not only is he a fairy, but he can cure Ineko.”
“You have until tomorrow morning, then.”
“Impossible. I don’t even know where he lives.”
“That’s true. And if he is a fairy, maybe we’re the only ones who see him — maybe Ineko’s sprightly side has imbued us with the power to see him. It would be nice if we could take him with us tomorrow morning, though, when we go to see her at the clinic.”
“I said that’s impossible,” Kuno said, an irritated note in his voice. “Anyway, just what sort of effect do you expect him to have on her?”
“I like the atmosphere at the Ikuta Clinic, I really do. But more than trees and grass, more than the sky and the soil, I think a sort of fairy in human form — a heart so perfect in its innocence that it goes beyond what we usually mean by innocence — might assuage the spasms of the mad, in ways we can’t even comprehend. It’s just a thought that occurred to me. You and I know Ineko so well that we’re no help. But she’s never met that boy, so maybe . . . just like that . . .”
“You talk like he’s an angel, or a medium.”
“Exactly. I think the world even now is full of people who might as well be angels. And they can wipe away a mental illness just like that, especially a mild case.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Kuno frowned. “We don’t want to leave everything to her doctor. We can discuss it at the inn tonight. If any other miraculous cures come to mind as we talk, we can talk about them as well.”
The two stepped from the bank of the river onto the earthen bridge. It wasn’t large enough to have a handrail. The grass at either end was a pristine green, not a speck of dust on the blades, a color so deep it was hard to believe it was February; this green, too, seemed to express the life of this town. Dandelions grew among the weeds. Their leaves spread wide and low, thrusting aside the hardy growth around them. Full of vitality, and large for dandelions, they radiated in all directions. You wondered, seeing them, whether the dandelions in this region were stronger, more determined to live, than those elsewhere. They were all already producing buds; some had bloomed, with three or even four flowers. These flowers, too, were large for dandelions, the petals uncommonly thick, their yellow unusually deep.
“Dandelions close up in the evening and open again in the morning, don’t they? Does that sound right to you?” Ineko’s mother asked.
“Really?” Kuno stared at the flowers. “I have no idea — I’ve never heard that before. You hardly see any dandelions in Tokyo these days, but even if I did, I wouldn’t look at one closely enough to notice when it closes and opens.”
“Yes, people are surprisingly oblivious when it comes to such things. And dandelions are wildflowers, no one really cares. I’ve never heard of anyone growing them, not in fields, not even in pots. But then I was raised in the countryside. I can’t even recall when I first noticed, or learned — it just came to me now that dandelions are like that. That they close up in the evening and open
in the morning. A childhood memory, I suppose, not even a memory. But in fact I’m not at all sure that it’s true.”
“Now that you mention it, Mother, look at that big one there.” Kuno pointed. “Doesn’t it look like its petals are starting to close? Don’t the tips arch out more during the day, around the rim, when they’re fully open?”
“Perhaps.” Ineko’s mother replied, almost inaudibly.
“Because it’s almost dusk, I suppose. Out on the ocean, too, and in the sky,” Kuno said. “The clinic bell will ring again at six. Then at nine, if I remember right. Ineko won’t necessarily be ringing it. Though perhaps it will sound to us as though she is.”
“The bell?”
“I imagine we’ll be having dinner at the inn when the six-o’clock bell rings. By nine, we may already have gone to bed. I doubt there would be anything to do even if we stayed up in a town like this. Of course, we won’t yet have fallen asleep.”
“I don’t want to hear the clinic bell anymore,” Ineko’s mother replied vacantly.
“You must be exhausted, taking Ineko up to the clinic, leaving her there,” Kuno said, gazing at Ineko’s mother’s face. “Perhaps it would be best if you went right to bed, as soon as we’ve found an inn.”
“I doubt I could get to sleep.”
The bridge was hardly long enough to say you had crossed it. No boundary separated the dirt on the bridge from that of the country road; there was no change at all. They walked into town. Nothing in particular caught the eye. This was not the road they had taken up to the clinic, but they were certainly heading toward the station. They saw a few houses with straw roofs. A store on the first floor of one two-story building was selling medicine and cosmetics; the products were neatly arrayed just inside the door, in a space whose dirt floor seemed to have been recently redone. The interior was brightly lit. The little boxes looked unusually bright and colorful.
Pausing to look, they realized that the next building was an inn. The colors in the store seemed to have guided them to the inn. They exchanged glances.
“With a name like Ikuta House, it ought to be one of the better inns in town,” Kuno said, “even if it looks pretty run-down.” Though Ineko’s mother hadn’t rebuffed Kuno’s repeated suggestion that they stay overnight in town, part of her still felt undecided. And yet when he walked through the door of Ikuta House, she followed.
The two-room suite they were shown into on the second floor — an eight-mat room and a six-mat room — was by no means as shabby as the entryway had led them to expect. The smell of tatami and sake hung in the air. The locals probably used it for parties and so on.
The woman from the inn stepped into the hall and drew back an old, slightly yellowing white curtain. There was the ocean. A few small pines were scattered along the narrow beach. That was it. Compared to the luxuriant, warm-climate green of the trees up on the hill around the Ikuta Clinic, even in February, and to the vivid colors of the river and the grass, the needles on the pines seemed oddly sparse and haggard on the shore. Even their shadows on the sand were blurred, shapeless. The gray ocean, too, wore a forlorn air.
As soon as the woman left, Ineko’s mother got up and slid the shōji shut. Only after she had sat down again did she speak. “There don’t seem to be any other guests.”
“Hard to say. It’s not dark yet.”
“We get to spend the night in quite a curious place, thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me? I thought we were doing this for Ineko.”
“Unpleasant to think of being here at night, after it gets dark.”
“You’re thinking of Ineko? Of what it’s like at night up at the clinic?” Kuno asked. “Shall we give her a call to see how she’s doing?”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you.” The mother shook her head.
“We could call the doctor, if you think it’s a bad idea to call her.”
“That’s not necessary.”
For reasons Kuno couldn’t understand, Ineko’s mother looked very stern.
The woman from the inn brought tea and coals for the hibachi.
“We’d like dinner at six,” Kuno told her.
“You can close the shutters, too, if you wouldn’t mind,” the mother added.
“There aren’t any shutters, actually,” said the woman.
“Really? Just the glass windows and curtains?”
“Yes. The rooms downstairs have them. They’re older.”
“That’s all right, we’ll manage.”
“Would you like me to bring hot water bottles for your futons, or is a kotatsu preferable?” the woman asked.
“Water bottles are fine,” said the mother.
The woman left.
“She didn’t say anything either way,” Kuno said with a smile, “but I’m guessing that even in a place like this it will be an electric kotatsu. I don’t really need either one, honestly — a kotatsu or a hot water bottle.”
“Ineko has always had cold feet,” the mother murmured pensively. “Maybe she got it from me, I don’t know — I remember she did once comment on how cold my feet were. She was an only child, of course, and the sudden death of her father frightened her so much that we slept on the same futon until she got too old for that.”
“Ah?”
“It’s strange, but some nights her feet were colder than mine, while on others mine were colder — I wonder why.”
Kuno remained silent. He couldn’t bring himself to speak. Ineko’s mother seemed so at ease with him now that she wasn’t at all concerned with propriety.
“My late husband once told me he liked it when a woman’s hands and feet felt cold at first. Having them warm up as you go along, in other words. Maybe that was because his own body got so hot it was like he was on fire, I’m not sure. Anyway, I’ve always felt cold. I suppose some men would say they like women to be nice and warm.”
“Ah.” Oddly enough, it was harder for the young Kuno to parry this sort of remark than it was for the mother, a middle-aged woman, to make it.
“My being so cold doesn’t matter, but Ineko worried — she thought maybe it was her fault. Though when we slept together, she’d warm up.”
“It’s unpleasant just imagining a woman whose body gets so hot,” said Kuno blushing.
“I’m sure it’s better if a mother’s breast is warm, don’t you think? When she’s feeding her baby?” said the mother.
“My own mother’s was warm, I think. Though of course I can’t really remember back so far . . . children create those memories retrospectively, I guess.”
“Babies are warm. I think their temperatures are higher than ours.”
“Yes.” Kuno sounded unsure of himself, and of course he’d never held a baby to his chest to feed it. He’d never been moved enough by touching a baby’s skin to remember how high or low its temperature had been.
He knew, though, that Ineko’s hands and feet were always cold. He wondered if her mother had been trying to coax him into revealing something by talking in such a seemingly intimate way about the coldness of her own body, and touching so lightly on the coldness of Ineko’s limbs. His chest tensed at the thought. Kuno could relax with Ineko’s mother, knowing she was as familiar as she could be with him and Ineko, and forgave everything; that was what had made it possible for him to come with her to this place, to deliver Ineko to the Ikuta Clinic. When it came to their relations as man and woman, though, it was only to be expected that much would remain concealed — no matter how openly Ineko spoke with her mother and no matter how much Kuno himself shared. Words could not touch the deepest core of such matters.
The bonds between men and women predate language, and while the words we have used to express those ties may have grown exceptionally subtle and refined since language first arose, they are still just words. Words make our loves richer and more complicated, yes, but much has also been
lost on their account — shrouded in the trappings of the age, drunk on the vacuity of artificial thrills. The progress of language is both a friend to love between the sexes and its enemy. Such love abides, it seems, in the mysterious depths where language cannot reach. Perhaps it’s a slight exaggeration to say that the language of love is a stimulant, a drug; but whatever led us humans to create such a language, it was not life itself — which is the root of love — and therefore that language cannot engender the life that is the root of all else.
Ineko’s somagnosia, too, was beyond language.
Shortly before six, the woman brought dinner in. The grilled fish had cooled, but at least the miso soup was warm.
Ineko’s mother had hardly any appetite.
“The rice is undercooked,” she said.
Kuno had requested dinner at six because the bell at the clinic would be ringing then. Sure enough, they heard it.
“Did that sound to you like the bell Ineko rang at three, Mother?” Kuno’s face clouded. “It’s entirely different, right from the first ring.”
“Is it?” The mother put down her chopsticks and listened.
“It’s just a regular evening bell,” Kuno said, “like at any old temple.”
“I should think that was obvious,” the mother replied.
“And yet the sound fills me with regret,” Kuno said, the look on his face so different from a moment ago that he might have been wearing a mask. “Was I wrong, Mother? Have I made a terrible mistake, only I was so wrapped up in my love for Ineko that I didn’t notice? That bell — it’s as if it’s sucking the life from my heart, dragging me down into a darkness that never ends. Who’s striking it now, I wonder? A madman in the throes of some evil passion, a noble confessor? How many times will it ring? Let me listen in silence, please. You, too — listen.”
“It’s just a bell at a mountain temple, that’s all.” Ineko’s mother glanced, puzzled, at Kuno’s face, more interested in his demeanor than in the bell. She was discreet enough that he may not have realized she was observing him; maybe he thought she was concentrating on the bell, as he had suggested. She kept silent for a few moments, saying nothing to disabuse him.
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