The Silver Spoon

by Kansuke Naka

  After proudly showing the book to all, I would say, “Be well and happy,” and go into the bedroom where my aunt would tell fabulous stories about the pictures. Finally I would look at the pictures all over again before putting the book near the pillow and falling asleep.

  25

  I was so timid I couldn’t speak up when among people, and if I saw something I wanted all I did was stop walking, still holding onto my aunt’s sleeve. My aunt, who knew this, would look around and ask questions. Until she hit upon the right thing I would simply go on shaking my head, but when it took too much time I would reluctantly point at what I wanted, only to put my finger shyly in my mouth. I loved the toy called “three scares,”87 but my aunt disliked the snake and soon put it away when I wasn’t looking. The bamboo rabbit jumped. On warm days its glue loosened and the rabbit, instead of jumping, would slowly raise its bottom and fall on its side. Besides these, the toys I liked were the bird in a cage that turned round and round, peeping, if you blew on the handle attached to its cage, and the “bream bow”88 on which a fish slid down, its tail quivering delicately.

  On windy winter nights, the fire of the kantera lamps in the roadside stalls sputtered desolately and the wicks looked like bloodshot eyes. At such times the person I pitied the most was an old woman selling raisin cakes. What the raisin cakes were I don’t know. A shriveled-up woman of about seventy, she had a faded lantern with Raisin Cakes written on it and a few paper bags laid out on the small counter, but I never saw anyone buying them. I was truly sorry for her and pleaded with my aunt, but it was all so grimy that she wouldn’t buy from her. Some years later when I was able to go out on fête days by myself, the old woman was still there, with her stall on the same corner near the noodle diner. Whenever a fair was on, I walked in front of her stall, back and forth, back and forth, tears brimming in my eyes. But each time I was unable to buy from her, and returned home, against my wishes. One night, however, I finally mustered my courage and approached the Raisin Cakes lantern. The old woman took me for a customer and picked up a paper bag.

  SASUKUMI: THREE SCARES

  “May I help you?”

  I did not know what to say, and before I knew what I was doing, I had thrown a two-sen coin on the counter and then ran to the shrubbery in the Shōrin temple. My heart was pounding and my face burning.

  I had no intention of going to “the fools’ festival” at Lord Hachiman’s.89 This was because the fool’s mask with a crushed nose, the hyottoko’s90 face whose eyes are topsy-turvy, and the too insistent, vulgar clown would sicken me. However, in their ignorant kindness, hoping it would cure my depression, my family, with even my aunt on their side, would try by any means to get me there. After I turned nine or ten, I would plead with them, saying it was painful to go to such a place. But they all thought it was just an excuse and would push me out of the house. When that happened, I went to a nearby field and, lying on my back on a cliff covered with large trees, spent my time watching the mountains.

  26

  Compared with the Kanda brats, the children in the new neighborhood were, as you might expect, much calmer, and the streets quieter, a world more suited to someone like me. So, my aunt tried very hard to find me a playmate, which she eventually did in O-Kuni-san, a girl on the other side of the street. (I have only recently learned that her father had been a samurai of the Awa fiefdom and a well-known loyalist91 in those days.) Before anyone knew about it, my aunt had found out that O-Kuni-san was weak and quiet, even the fact that she had chronic headaches. She decided that therefore the girl could be just the right sort of friend for me. One day, she took me to an open area inside the gate of O-Kuni-san’s house, where she was playing with some children, and, even though I resisted, put me down near them.

  “He’s a good boy. Would you play with him?”

  For a moment the fun seemed to go out of the children, but soon they resumed their play with cheer.

  That day it was for an “audience” only. Clinging to my aunt’s sleeve, I watched them play for a while and came home. I was taken there the next day, too. In three or four days the children and I became used to each other somewhat, and when they laughed at something funny I showed a smile of sorts.

  O-Kuni-san and her friends always danced “The Lotus Flower Has Bloomed.”92 So my aunt patiently taught me the song and made me rehearse at home. When she decided I had mastered it, she took me inside the gate and, though I fretted, installed me beside O-Kuni-san. Seeing us two timid children shyly holding back, she tactfully inveigled us into placing our hands together, one palm upon the other, made our fingers bend, and then, giving them a squeeze from above, she finally succeeded in linking up the two hands. Until then I hadn’t had a stranger hold my hand, so I was a bit afraid. Also, worried that my aunt might sneak away, I kept my eyes glued on her. The addition of this inharmonious newcomer totally spoiled the children’s fun, and they wouldn’t start turning. Observing this, my aunt joined the ring and, clapping her hands cheerfully, moving her feet rhythmically, and turning, she sang,

  Oh, it has opened, it has opened,

  What flower has opened?

  Slowly the children responded to her and began singing in whispers. Prompted by my aunt, I too started to follow the song secretively, while eyeing all the faces.

  It has opened, it has opened,

  What flower has opened?

  The lotus flower has opened!

  As soon as the small ring began turning, my aunt doubled her effort. The song grew louder, the ring turned faster. I’d not yet done any normal walking, and my heart began to pound, I felt dizzy. I wanted to let go, but everyone was absorbed and kept pulling me round and round. At long last the children said,

  We thought it just opened,

  But it has closed just as fast!

  and all at once closed around my aunt. My aunt said,

  Oh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

  and got out of the ring.

  It has closed, it has closed,

  What flower has closed?

  The lotus flower has closed. . . .

  Hands thrust forward, still linked, they shook them in rhythm with the song.

  We thought it just closed,

  But it has just as quickly opened!

  The closed lotus flower suddenly opened, jerking my arms apart, almost taking them off. After this was repeated several times, I was tired out by the unaccustomed exercise and the mental exertion. My aunt had to loosen my fingers before taking me home.

  27

  O-Kuni-san was my first real friend. At first, I couldn’t play unless my aunt stayed with me, and stay she did, fully aware I’d been plopped down into that place, as it were. But having made sure that the neighborhood was, unlike Kanda, a world created for a child like me, quiet and safe, she began to leave me alone, after telling me in detail, over and over gain, to go inside the gate when the cart came by, not to go near the ditches, and so on.

  When O-Kuni-san and I were face to face, she followed the usual children’s formalities on becoming acquainted and asked questions, starting with my father’s name, my mother’s name, down to the year, the month, and the day of my birth. And when she asked my zodiacal year, I obediently said the Year of the Rooster.

  “I was born in the same year,” she said.93 “Let’s be good friends.”

  Then we walked about, fluttering our sleeves like wings, saying, “Cluck-a-cluck! cluck-a-cluck!” There’s something gratifying about sharing the same birth year, as if you were reliving the past together. O-Kuni-san also complained that her family called her Skinny or Longlegs and I, being sour myself about my family calling me Octopus, sympathized with her. As we talked about various things, we agreed on everything, and it didn’t take long for us to become good friends. O-Kuni-san was tawny and thin, with a distinct, shapely nose, and she had bangs, her hair neatly gathered behind and tied with a red piece of cloth.

  Sometimes leaning on the worm-eaten gate post, sometimes squatting to play with mud, our faces so close
as to make our heads almost touch each other, we chatted away about silly nothings, such as the tooth one of us lost yesterday and a finger pricked on a thorn. And when we became totally content with each other, we just laughed out loud. One of her eyeteeth, I think that was it, was missing, and whenever she laughed, the spot looked like a cave. Having had only my aunt as my companion at home, I quickly began, after I became O-Kuni-san’s friend, to acquire ideas about things like what was good and what was bad. But since I, though of the same age, was far behind her, I followed her every word in everything.

  In the neighborhood was a girl called O-Mine-chan who was one year older than us. She was not only mean but extremely jealous, so everyone disliked her. But since we met every day, children’s courtesy sometimes made it necessary to let her join us. One day O-Kuni-san and I again talked about the Year of the Rooster and were fluttering about, cock-a-cocking, cock-a-cocking. When O-Mine-chan saw this, she declared, “Oh, I was born in the Year of the Monkey!” and, squealing like one, she scratched us.

  28

  O-Kuni-san’s comb was painted red and had a chrysanthemum design lacquered on it. She also had a hairpin with a scarlet and aquamarine crepe ball at its end. Every time she got something new, she showed it to me boastfully. But if I tried to look at it closely, she teased me by hiding it in her sleeve. At such times I regretted I wasn’t born a girl, and wondered why boys didn’t make themselves as pretty as girls.

  When we played Hide-and-Seek, O-Kuni-san would first scare me with stories like “Yesterday the Three-eyed Boy appeared in the bush in the backyard” and “I saw a coiled rock snake.” Then she would make me close my eyes under a damson plum and hide herself. I had to go around the house to the backyard to look for her. Near the corner toward the garden, inside a bamboo fence, they kept two geese that I was intensely afraid of. I tried to sneak by, but they always saw me and, pushing up their heads like the Lord Ebisu’s crown, guacked after me. I would finally pass them and walk toward the tea bush, but then there was the next-door neighbor’s milk cow, who would stick her head over the fence and moo. Since I was afraid of her too, I would only look halfheartedly in the tea bush and go on to search in the garden. There were many big trees there and it was difficult to find my friend. Looking around, I couldn’t see anyone, and I knew the cow and the geese were waiting for my return.

  “Are you ready?” I would call tentatively.

  In the utter silence, there was only the sound of my voice and nothing else. Did she cheat and go off somewhere? I would begin to wonder, my sense of loneliness increasing. I’d wish that my aunt would come to get me.

  “Are you ready?” I would call again. I knew my voice trembled with tears. Then, somewhere near the bamboo bush, a small voice would say, “Ready.”

  There she is, I would think, and go near the bush. But just behind the fence the ginkgo trees of the temple rose up black, and among the bamboo stood a confusion of camellias and honey locusts ominously dark. As I stood stiff with fright, wondering if it was true that the Three-eyed Boy had appeared, I would hear a giggle in the depth of the bush. Encouraged, I would go in. But bamboo stumps and roots stuck up everywhere and “it-hurts-it-hurts” grass94 grew all over the place. So for me, whose aunt meticulously cleared the way of every pebble, it was like the Needle Mountain of Hell, impossible to walk. Besides, I imagined snakes coiling all around me. And it was all so eerie. Step by fearful step I pushed myself forward. When I went near enough, O-Kuni-san would jump out of the dark corner, rolling her eyes and crying, “Boo!”

  O-KUNI-SAN’S COMB AND HAIRPIN

  I knew it was O-Kuni-san, but all the same I would get gooseflesh all over and run away desperately, shouting, “Stop it! Stop it!” That amused her, and she would chase me as if to the end of this world.

  Then it would be my turn to hide. But I couldn’t hide in the bush, and she knew her grounds well, so she would find me in no time. Sometimes, though, when for some reason she couldn’t locate me, she would go into the house and eat cookies. I didn’t know that, so, after waiting for what seemed to be an eternity, I would go out and say, “O.K., it’s daybreak now!” Then, she would say, “I found you!” and come out munching.

  “Here’s something for you, too,” she’d say and give me the crumbs of her kinkatō.

  29

  We were both very fond of decals. Their oily smell was indescribable. Racing to get the pictures, we would spit on them stickily and, while rubbing them with our fingers, say, “Hurry up and stick, hurry up and stick!”

  Then we would place our hands side by side and enjoy stretching and pinching up the skin on the backs of our hands now tattooed with variously colored birds and animals. In a while the decals became dry and our skin itchy, but we would carefully scratch around them. Once we put the same picture on our upper arms to see which of us could keep it on longer. I took care lest my sleeve wear out the picture, but the next morning I saw only the incoherent fragments of it. Breakfast over, I went to see O-Kuni-san with much trepidation.

  “I’m sorry, mine’s become like this.”

  O-Kuni-san indignantly tucked up her sleeve as if to show she was different, only to discover that hers was a mess, too. Widening her eyes, she said, “So has mine!” and laughed merrily.

  When the cherry blossoms scattered, we competed in stringing as many petals as we could on a thread.

  One day we were playing house in front of O-Kuni-san’s foyer with bowls of red bean rice, pretending that wood-sorrel leaves were cucumbers, when O-Mine-chan appeared and said, “Let’s play.” At once O-Kuni-san whispered to me, “I don’t like her. Let’s be mean to her.”

  She sneakily collected the catchweeds growing by the fence and suddenly threw some of them at O-Mine-chan, shouting,

  “Catchweeds, catchweeds, catch the devil!”

  O-Mine-chan wasn’t about to be beaten so readily, and threw some back at us. O-Kuni-san gave me half of the ones she was holding, and I threw them at the girl as best I could in retaliation for the daily ill feelings.

  “Catchweeds, catchweeds, catch the devil!”

  “Catchweeds, catchweeds, catch the devil!”

  “Catchweeds, catchweeds, catch the devil!”

  Because it was a surprise attack and her force was inferior in number, O-Mine-chan began to run. We chased her and continued to throw wildly. In no time the catchweeds were stuck all over her back. She turned around angrily and glared at us before starting home with the catchweeds hanging onto her. I watched her go, fearful that she might tell her parents, but then she turned back again, stuck out her chin hatefully, and ran away.

  Broad-bean leaves swell like a tree frog’s belly when you suck on them. This was fun and I kept plucking them in the garden, though I was scolded each time. If you put a petal of the sasanqua flower on your tongue and draw in your breath, it makes a sound like a hichiriki flute.95

  Come spring, the damson plum96 in front of the foyer emulated a Confucian scholar and put on blossoms like a puff of cloud, and the clear fragrance of the pale blossoms, dazzled by the sun, lingered around it. The children of the neighborhood would gather below and play various games. When we heard them, my aunt would take me out to them and, after whispering instructions in their ears, go home. Though they were all three or four years older than I, they became attached to my aunt, who loved children, and took to calling her Kan-chan’s Aunt. They often played with me, protectively, and looked after me like the children that they were. It was odd that, though much bigger than I, they easily lost any game they played with me. When we played tag, no one could catch me, and when we played with tops, mysteriously, no one’s hit mine. Before I knew it, I would find myself a winner. When I went home and talked about it proudly, my family would praise me, saying, “Attaboy! Attaboy!”

  It took a long time before this dimwit realized they’d treated me like a ninny.

  30

  Nearby lived a man who peddled millet jelly half the time and did farm work the other half. If the weather w
as fine, he always came along pulling his cart, blowing his charamela97 every now and then. The sound of that instrument, which seems to shatter the harmony of everything, was strangely exciting to children, prompting those at home to rush outside, and those playing to stop playing and come, running. An assortment of kids, some sporting sticks on their hips as swords, some with muddy tops pushed into the front of their kimono, would noisily surround the cart. Besides millet jelly, the man carried lucky draws and cheap sweets, so for a while the children would be busily occupied with the red and blue tickets. The man would squish a wooden stick around in the amber-colored jelly stagnating in the tub and bring it up with a shiny ball of jelly on the end. You put it in your mouth and turn the stick, and the dense sweetness melts in your saliva and the ball gets smaller and smaller.

  AMEYA: LOLLIPOP VENDOR’S TUB

  The “yummy-yummy lollipop” couple also came by. The man carried on his head what looked like a washtub bound with many brass hoops. It was rimmed with small flags, each tipped with a red and white wood-duck-shaped candy. Dressed in a yukata with the design of a carp leaping up a waterfall,98 he swayed his shoulders and hip rhythmically as he walked, beating his drum udo-dong. He was followed by a woman wearing a towel on her head in “big-sister” style,99 playing the samisen raucously. If you bought a lot, the man would put on an okame mask100 and dance, and the children would all circle round and watch. He would twist his head, wave his sleeves, and, dancing in carefree fashion to the woman’s samisen, he would come with odd steps after the children, who ran about squealing. The dance over, he would say, “Sorry we’ve been too noisy.”