“Ineko shared all her memories of her father’s accident, I’m sure?”
“Memories? I’d say that’s a bit too gentle a word. I doubt I’ll ever heal the wounds she’s suffered from that, even if I spend my whole life trying.”
“Surely she’s told you everything else, too? All the major events in her life so far? Though you say she doesn’t like to talk about the past.”
“I said that in part because I feel guilty, actually. When she’s with me, when . . . it’s a bit awkward to have to talk about this, but when she and I are so close that we’re almost joined, so to speak, and then for whatever reason, just like that, I become invisible to her — her terror of these episodes is just too cruel, it really is. And since it’s my fault, I see it as a sin on my part. It’s true it’s an illness, but it’s me who brings the attacks on. Naturally, my first thought was that she must have an extreme aversion to me, that she detests me, but it turns out that wasn’t it, the episodes seem to be brought on by love, and that just breaks my heart. Still, there’s no denying that I’m guilty of a sin.”
“That isn’t true.” Ineko’s mother shook her head. “Only think of that pong-pong-ball story — she’d never told you about that.”
Just then, they heard the sound of the bell.
“Ah, it’s nine o’clock. The nine o’clock bell,” Kuno said.
“The nine o’clock bell,” Ineko’s mother repeated, looking over at the sliding doors beyond which lay the ocean. Kuno turned, too. Not because the tolling seemed to be coming from there, but because Ineko’s mother had opened those doors and stepped out into the hallway when the six o’clock bell was ringing, and lifted the curtain to gaze out at the water.
“I wonder who’s ringing it this time,” Kuno said, concentrating on the sound. “Probably not Ineko.”
The bell rang a second time. The evening was silent in this country town, and perhaps because they had the whole second floor of this dreary inn to themselves, the long, lingering hum of the bell seemed always on the verge of fading into nothing, but never did. Even when it finally ended it seemed not to have ended. It was as if the sound, ceasing, were still drifting about in the room, in the air, only in some other form. Then the bell was struck a third time.
“It sounds more settled,” Kuno said. “It’s not a madman striking it. This must be how it sounds when someone from the clinic does it, someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“We’ve settled down ourselves now, that’s why. Because we’re sitting and listening.”
“They said at the clinic that they ring the bell at nine to help turn the patients’ thoughts toward sleep. The town lets them do it because the sound is so tranquil, so peaceful.”
The woman from the inn came to lay out their bedding. Presumably it was the bell that prompted her. When she began arranging the two futons next to each other, Kuno told her to put one in the next room. Ineko’s mother sat motionless. Before the woman had finished in the other room, the bell at Jōkōji has ceased its ringing.
“How many times was that?” Kuno asked.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t counting,” Ineko’s mother replied. “I’m sure they’re done striking it, but somehow it seems as if it could go on ringing, don’t you think?”
“We should have gone to see the bell. The doctor said they would have Ineko strike it at three, so you would think we’d have asked to see it. I can’t imagine why it didn’t occur to us. If we’d gone, we could have had an image in our minds as we listened at three, and six, and now again at nine.”
“It must be quite old. Otherwise the military would have made them give it up during the war,” Ineko’s mother said. She hesitated a moment, then went on. “Mr. Kuno, did Ineko ever tell you about the white heron at Emperor Nintoku’s tomb?”
“A white heron at a tomb?” Kuno eyed Ineko’s mother. “No, I haven’t heard about that.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really. When she was in high school, Ineko went on a trip to Kansai with some friends, and they visited Emperor Nintoku’s tomb. It’s very large, as you know. A huge mound, covered in trees. And above all that green — that broad, thick expanse of foliage — there was a flock of white herons. So many you can’t imagine. Ineko was so moved by that — the herons made more of an impression on her than anything else on that trip.”
“I see.”
“I thought of that just now, that story about Emperor Nintoku’s herons, as I was listening to the bell.”
“Ineko never told me that,” Kuno said. “I wonder why the bell reminded you of that.”
“No reason, I just remembered. You never know what will come to you.”
“A flock of white herons over a mass of green would certainly be impressive,” Kuno said, looking as if he were trying to imagine the scene. “I suppose some of the birds must have been resting on the trees, while others were flying around up above.”
“Yes, she said some were flying. It was an incredible number of herons.”
“You’re lucky to see a sight like that once in your life. Even if the herons lived there, on the tomb.”
“She asked me to go visit the tomb with her, so she could show me the herons, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. I wonder if they are still there.”
“What kind of birds live in the woods around Jōkōji, do you think?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Maybe the woods are full of birds with welcoming songs, just as the banks of Ikuta River are covered in dandelions. Those very woods, inhabited by madmen . . .”
Ineko’s mother didn’t reply to this, so Kuno fell silent for a time, too.
“I don’t believe I ever asked Ineko about the trees on Emperor Nintoku’s tomb, but I’m sure there must have been some pines. Sometimes trees can seem a bit frightening, when they’re too dense, or when they get too old or too big, but I think in most cases trees tend to put people in a tender mood. Grass, too. And those dandelions along the river, and the woods around Jōkōji.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“That word ‘tender’ reminds me to tell you something, Mr. Kuno,” Ineko’s mother squinted her eyes slightly, then glanced up at Kuno’s face. “Perhaps it’s cruel of you to be as tender as you are to Ineko.”
“Cruel?” Kuno replied, startled.
“From a woman’s perspective, there’s something cruel in a man’s tenderness. A woman told me that once, an old friend. I suppose the words have stuck with me because they were so unexpected. They caught me off guard — I was so taken aback I felt like something in my chest had toppled over, but when I thought it over later on, I realized there was nothing strange in it at all. It happens all the time, that a man’s tenderness has a cruel effect on a woman.”
“That’s a cruel thing to say to me. Terribly cruel.”
“Is it? I meant it as an apology.”
“An apology? Well, that sounds just as cruel. Like you’re telling me not to love Ineko. That you want me to stop loving her.”
“That’s not quite right,” Ineko’s mother said quietly, refusing to be drawn in by Kuno’s agitated tone. “Tell me, Mr. Kuno. If I fall asleep before you, aren’t you planning to sneak out and go up to the Ikuta Clinic, to bring Ineko back? You are, aren’t you.”
“Tonight? No, that hadn’t occurred to me. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Then I can sleep easy tonight?”
“I doubt you’ll get any sleep. Just like Ineko, who won’t be able to sleep at the clinic, lying there surrounded by all those crazies. She doesn’t have a private room, after all. She’s not at Emperor Nintoku’s tomb, amidst all that greenery. She might imagine the white herons, but it will be an illusion. Who knows, maybe she’ll escape on her own, even without me going to fetch her. There are no bars to keep her in.” Kuno got to his feet as he was speaking. Ineko’s mother watched him. He began pacing up and down.
“Mr. Kuno, would yo
u please go to the other room,” Ineko’s mother said, a stern note in her voice. “I want very badly to lie down. Neither Ineko nor I slept a wink last night.”
“All right. Get some rest.”
“I wonder why you were born, Mr. Kuno, and why you and Ineko ended up together.”
“What? How can you be so negative about everything? Or maybe you don’t intend for it to sound that way, maybe you genuinely meant it as a question?”
“Perhaps I said it because I’m so exhausted that my head isn’t right.”
“Maybe its my head that isn’t right. But even if it isn’t, that hasn’t made me fall for someone I should never have loved. Maybe deep down in your heart you want me to break up with Ineko, but if I ever did leave her, something awful would happen. I really feel that way. Something terrible, I’m sure of it.”
“That’s not a very tender thing to say.”
“I don’t know if it’s tender or not, but I think that sort of feeling is what lies at the core of tenderness. Only . . . no, tenderness isn’t the word. I mean something more intense.”
“Mr. Kuno. When you lie with her, she stops seeing you. You know that.”
“That isn’t a denial — her denying me. What is it? Help me think about that, Mother.”
“Will thinking make it clear? Here on our futons, with our hearts calm?”
“Is that how you see it?” Kuno walked into the next room. “Shall I close the doors?”
“Please do.”
“Good night,” Kuno said from the next room after he had slid the doors shut. There was a moment of silence. Then, “Mother?”
Perhaps because she could no longer see him, either his face or his body, she seemed to detect a certain pleading note in his voice.
“Good night,” Ineko’s mother replied, her own tone somewhat more friendly. “Are you in bed already?”
“I was just debating whether to sit on the futon or get in under the covers.”
“Oh. Why is that?”
“Have you, Mother?”
“Me? I guess you could say I was wondering what to do, too, though I wasn’t thinking in any real sense of the word. I just don’t feel like I’ll be able to sleep.”
“I wouldn’t imagine you could.”
“I’m tired enough. Not having slept last night.”
“I think you should lie down.”
“I will. You, too, Mr. Kuno.”
“I’m still mulling over which is best. Is it easier to set my heart free, to let it fly through the sky, if I sit with my feet tucked under me, my back straight? Or will it be easier if I lie down and let all the strength drain from body. How can I make my heart like the sound of the bell at Jōkōji as it flies through the emptiness?”
“Toward Ineko, you mean?”
“Yes,” Kuno replied without hesitating. “The sound of the bell we heard earlier, though, Mother — it’s gone now. We can listen as hard as we like, but we won’t hear it anymore. Could it be, though, that our hearing just isn’t sharp enough? I remember reading in some book that our ears are designed to hear sounds within a certain range. There are lots of animals who hear better than we do. Of course, animals are living creatures just like us, so there must be limits on what they can hear, too. Or maybe certain animals have a sixth sense, or a seventh or some other number, that lets them feel inaudible sounds?”
“I’ve heard that. And not just sounds — they have some sort of instinct that warns them beforehand of natural disasters and other calamities.”
“Humans probably had a sixth sense like that, too, in ancient times, at the very beginning. You know, I often wonder about the effect on people’s ears of constant, unending noise like you get in a place like Tokyo, the terrible racket of the city.”
“Our ears have gotten duller, of course. Just like our feelings have been blunted.”
“I’m sure that’s true. And yet people in the country seem less attentive to sounds, don’t you think? That’s the impression I get from their expressions, at any rate.”
“I doubt it’s only sounds that make their expressions that way,” Ineko’s mother said, putting an end to that line of discussion. Then she launched into a new topic. “I remember something else. Kizaki went on a trip to Europe once, he was gone for four months or so, and when he came back, whenever he looked out the window of a train at all the Japanese people walking on the platforms and the streets, he’d say that somehow they just didn’t look right in their Western clothing. Why do they have to swagger like that? They hurry along in the most weary manner, or throw themselves back in their seats like they’re determined not to let anyone get the best of them. Sometimes when we were on the train together he’d start chuckling to himself, and when I wanted to know what was so funny, he’d ask why everyone was trying so hard: he’d point out how stern their expressions were — or maybe less stern than pathetic. That’s how it struck him. The line from the shoulder to the collar on men’s jackets was almost always wrong, he said. He was talking about people in Tokyo, before the war. I’m sure it’s a little different now, though I don’t see that things have changed all that much. Now when I take the train and I see the people out on the platform, I remember Kizaki saying those things and it makes me feel sort of sad, sort of wretched.”
“From remembering Ineko’s father, or from seeing how Japanese men are dressed?”
“Both. I can’t separate them.”
All this while, they were talking through the sliding doors. She hadn’t heard anything that suggested Kuno was lying down. Was he sitting crosslegged on his futon? Or more properly, kneeling with his feet tucked beneath his legs? Most likely the latter, she thought.
“Something else has just come to me. This one’s odd, too,” Ineko’s mother said. “Once when Kizaki went to a department store in London, he saw an outfit that was both elegantly tailored and extremely gallant-looking, so he called the clerk over and told him he wanted to buy it. And the clerk said, ‘This is a lady’s riding costume.’ The top of the pants had seemed kind of wide and the bottom of the legs quite tight. That was why.”
“Hmm.”
“He should have bought it. If he had known Ineko would become an equestrian, he could have gotten it for her. A nice, attractive riding costume from the country that invented riding. Kizaki used to say that sometimes — he regretted that he hadn’t purchased it his whole life. It’s odd, though, he was a rider himself, and yet he couldn’t recognize the stylish outfit for the lady’s riding costume it was. Perhaps because he was a military man, and a boor. I suppose it might have been different if it had been hanging up.”
“Hmm.”
Kuno listened intently to her digressions, as long as they involved Ineko.
“I’ll buy Ineko one if we ever visit London together, once we’re married. I’ll do that.”
“You know she doesn’t ride anymore.”
Kuno didn’t know how to respond. Realizing that her tone had suddenly become rather harsh, Ineko’s mother continued, “He didn’t buy that outfit, but he did get some riding gear for himself. He treasured those things, and took good care of them.”
Kuno wondered whether Kizaki was using the things he had brought back from England when he tumbled from that cliff in Izu, but of course he didn’t ask. Instead, he just repeated what he’d said earlier.
“I think it might help if Ineko and I rode together. I’ll take lessons, and we’ll take a trip to Izu together, on horseback. That’s my plan. Not like criminals returning to the scene of the crime — not at all like that. It will serve as an offering. People often go out on the ocean and scatter flowers on the waves for people who died at sea, right? They steer the boat to a spot that seems close enough to where it happened, since there are no markers on the water. And the flowers scatter, and they keep moving, too, drifting about on the waves.”
“Yes. Though in his case, we
know the location. You could find that big rock.”
“Rocks last a thousand years, ten thousand years.”
“They do. It makes no difference to a big rock like that if one or two poor men like Kizaki break their bodies on its face. Humans wouldn’t leave so much as a scratch. And our world is just the same, wouldn’t you say? Whether he lived or died, it made no difference — Japan and the rest of the world have gone on just as they would have anyway, from that day to the present. Nothing has changed. Ineko and I grieved, of course, we suffered, but what does that matter to the world? How many people even know of our sorrow, our suffering?”
“I do.”
“Yes, that’s right. You’re the one,” said Ineko’s mother with a chuckle, her tone surprisingly cheerful. “There is one person who knows, then, that’s true. And I know you’re on our side, whatever may happen. There’s nothing more precious than a person like that — someone you can count on absolutely. Even parents and children, even spouses or lovers sometimes stop being there for each other. Personally, I could only ever put complete faith in someone I was sure I could rely on no matter how awful or low or hateful my actions had been, someone who would definitely support me. What point is there in faulting people for moral failings, flaws in their character, when you’re in a relationship with them?” For seem reason, Ineko’s mother had grown agitated.
“I’m here for you. And that means a hundred other people, a thousand, are here for you, too. I can assure you of that.”
“It’s kind of you to say so. Of course, I’d be lying if I said I see things the same way, but I’ll allow myself to be persuaded.”
“Even that rock — we could smash it to pieces, just like that. A bit of gunpowder is all it would take. People destroy great mountains all the time, one after the next.”
“That’s true, of course, but even if we smashed them all, the Alps and the Himalayas and all the rest, even if we filled in all the great oceans, nature would still be nature, solemn and indestructible. Human lives are over so quickly. A little plate can easily outlive a human. Life goes on, from a child to the child’s child, but for how long? The chain ends fairly soon.”
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