The Silver Spoon

by Kansuke Naka

  When the last hour was over, Tomi-kō was the first to run out of the classroom, signaling for the others to follow. Three or four who were among his worst apple-polishers did so, scampering. Resolutely prepared, I chose to be the last to leave for home. As expected, they were waiting for me at a deserted spot near the bamboo-grass bush in the Lord Hachiman’s, with the apple-polishers noisily clearing their throats for derisive effect. Not showing my determination to finally take him on, pretending not to notice, I tried to walk past them, when Tomi-kō issued a command.

  “Now, get him!”

  Most of them had nothing particular against me and were, besides, no match for me, so they just encircled me, babbling, except one, the bleary-eyed son of a priest who, out of what kind of loyalty he felt for Tomi-kō I don’t know, suddenly grabbed me by the neck from behind. Tomi-kō, inwardly afraid, gained courage from this dependable ally’s action and walked up to me.

  “Hey, you snot!”

  Suddenly I struck him smack on the forehead with the Hotei bamboo. To my surprise, this took all the air out of Tomi-kō.

  “Nooo, you are too violent,” he said and started sobbing feebly, his hands on his forehead. Watching their general’s sorry defeat, their faces saying they had sided with a terrible one, his foot soldiers sensed danger might soon fall on themselves and separately slunk away, mumbling things like “It’s none of my business.”

  What alarmed me, though, was the bleary-eyed bonze who wouldn’t let go. Eyes shut, he heavily hung on to me as if resolved to be killed in battle along with his commander. However tough-minded I may have been, this was too much for me; when I finally managed to tear myself apart from this clinging bastard and made it home, I myself was on the verge of tears, to tell you the truth.

  52

  As we broke icicles and fished snow with hard charcoal,149 the Peach Festival150 came around. My family had a set of ancient dolls that was said to have mysteriously survived the Great Fire of Kanda;151 it was in a terrible state with the five musicians reduced to three, the arrows of the arrow carrier mostly broken, and so forth. Nonetheless every year it was set out to soothe the children. My aunt would gather together all the junk from all over the house to make up for missing furniture and such, putting up a folding screen decorated with seashells here and piling roasted barley on origami paper on the ceremonial trays there, skillfully making the whole set appear wonderfully beautiful to a child’s eyes. Nothing made me happier than when the beautiful people were lined up on the daises covered with scarlet rugs, with the uppermost dais designated to be mine, the next one to be my younger sister’s, and the third one to be my youngest sister’s. Then we were allowed to offer lozenge cakes and popped rice. I remember provoking mirth by expressing my fear that the turban shells might crawl away while I was asleep.

  For each festival we made a point of inviting O-Kei-chan. She would come in a very fancy kimono, complete with an overcoat adorned with red tufts. When we sat cute and neat in front of the dolls’ daises eating popped beans like the good friends that we were, my aunt would give the smallest of the set of three cups to our dear guest and the middle-sized one to me and pour gruelly white sake152 for us. The sake would dangle out of the spout of the dispenser like a stick, making a rising mound in the cup, and we would chew on it with our front teeth, our noses side by side like minnows, before swallowing it. My aunt, who doted on children, enjoyed nothing better than to delight small ones in this fashion and, all happiness, she would rub us on the back with her hands.

  “Both of you are so lovely, so lovely.”

  Our wet nurse would say, as she always did, “You are a husband and wife like the dolls,” which we didn’t like.

  Very fancily dressed as she was, O-Kei-chan remained all prim and proper and, even though she had brought the ball and the o-tedama, she would merely fiddle with them, not offering to play with them. When she became a little excited after we played Backgammon, “Water-flower,”153 “Sixteen by Six,”154 and competed in stringing together Nanjing beads, I finally succeeded in luring her out into the backyard, taking with us the battledore155 featuring Narita-ya’s Kanjinchō156 and Otowa-ya’s Sukeroku,157 which my older sisters had passed down to me about that time. But overdecorated like goldfish as we were, and with the battledores too large for us, we would drop the shuttlecock after hitting it a couple of times. And so, just for the fun of it, we took turns slapping each other’s behinds.

  Oil vendor’s O-Some,

  Hisamatsu is ten.158

  HAGOITA: BATTLEDORES

  53

  Soon after the festival O-Kei-chan’s father passed away and she did not come for the time being. But one evening she came to play, making the plonk-plonk jingle-jingle of her plonk-clogs. Yet, perhaps because we were being oversensitive about it, she seemed terribly depressed, which made me jittery and anxious, and members of my family, feeling sorry for her, tried to console her in various ways. Then she said, We are moving tomorrow. Her grandmother and her mother were going back to their home province.

  “I am happy about moving,” O-Kei-chan said disconsolately, “but I don’t like it because, if we go far away, I’ll be unable to come here to play.”

  This made me so helpless I didn’t know what to do with myself, and the two of us were downcast. Saying that this was the last chance for parting, everyone joined in our play that evening. Our wet nurse, too, kept gazing at O-Kei-chan’s face repeating, “You are such an unlucky child.”

  The next day, her grandmother holding her hand, O-Kei-chan came to our foyer to say good-bye. Hearing her voice as she elegantly said her piece with her usual mature turns of phrase, I wanted to run out to see her, but overcome by a sudden, inexplicable shyness I remained hidden indecisively behind the sliding screens. O-Kei-chan was gone. Later every one in my family who’d seen her off said, “What a pretty young lady she is.” They said she was wearing the kimono she wore for the Dolls’ Festival. Sitting by myself in front of my desk, I was in useless tears, wondering why I hadn’t gone out to see her. My aunt, quickly spotting this, said, “I’m sorry for you, too.”

  The following day I went to school before everyone else. As I quietly sat on O-Kei-chan’s seat my longing for her enveloped me anew and I remained holding her desk in my arms. O-Kei-chan was a prankster. All over her desk were her pencil-drawings of mountain-water goblins159 and adder-monsters.160

  This is a story that is already twenty years old. For some reason I can’t help feeling that O-Kei-chan has died since. On the other hand, from time to time I also feel that she is still alive, occasionally remembering things from those days too.

  1Used as an amulet for safe childbirth.

  2The outbreak in the tenth year of Meiji (1877) claimed 6,817 people. It came a few months after the government promulgated the Cholera Prevention Law. But whether it was the one that killed Sōemon is not clear, for cholera outbreaks were rather common. For example, Clara Whitney (1860–1936), in her diaries, noted that Ulysses S. Grant, visiting Japan in 1879, had to avoid Kobe because of an outbreak there, which is said to have killed more than 100,000 people, and that in 1890 her dear friend Mrs. Murata died in the epidemic. See Clara’s Diary: An American Girl in Meiji Japan (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1975), p. 251 and p. 171. In September 1886, there was another outbreak in Tokyo. This one also killed more than 100,000 people. (Modern researchers think those tolls are way too high.) One of the earliest recorded cholera outbreaks in Japan may have occurred in 1674. Maruya Saiichi, Chūshingura to wa nani ka (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1984), p. 127. A worldwide outbreak reached Japan in 1822. The cholera outbreak in 1858 killed 28,000 people.

  3One of the Seven Deities of Good Luck, he embodies wealth and prosperity. He is usually shown as a figure carrying a large bag on his left shoulder and a magic mallet in his right hand, standing or sitting on rice bags. Mice often accompany him to suggest that his supply of rice is inexhaustible and can accommodate any number of them.

  4The white mice here are probab
ly a variety of what later (in Episode 1.23) are called “Nanjing mice,” having originally been bred in China as pets. In Japan breeding them became very popular in the mid-18th century.

  5Another name of cholera after the non-endemic disease came to Japan. It cleverly derives from the pseudo-onomatopoeic adjective korori, which describes a ready submission or death. What “one” and “three” mean is not clear, although cholera was also called mikka-korori, “three-day death,” because of its swift effect.

  6A city in Chiba famous for its Shinshō temple, which, in turn, is famous for its statue of Fudō (Acala). Papinot: Fudō is a “Buddhist divinity (probably the same as Dainichi) which has power to foil the snares of the devils. Fudō is represented with a dreadful expression and surrounded by flames; in the right hand he holds a sword (gōma no ken) to strike the demons, the left hand, a cord (baku no nawa) to bind them.” Emperor Suzaku (923–52) is said to have presented Fudō with a sword, and “the touch alone of this sword is said to cure insanity and deliver from the possession of the fox.”

  7The author’s given name was Kansuke, abbreviated to Kan, but since that is too short in Japanese, his family is likely to have called him Kanbō, “Kan Boy” (like calling William “Billy Boy”). However, little Kansuke was unable to pronounce it, so he called himself “Kanpon” instead, “pon” being the sound of a drum, like “bom” in English.

  8Red and white sugar-coated beans; also called Genji beans. Hōrai (Penglai in Chinese) is a mythical island east of China where the inhabitants maintain eternal youth. Papinot: “According to a Chinese legend, one of the three mountainous islands of the Eastern Sea inhabited by genii (tennin). This tradition probably has its origin in the vague notions of the Chinese concerning the existence of Japan.”

  9Kulika in Sanskrit. Here it refers to the Dragon King as the manifestation of Fudō, who is usually presented as a dragon coiling around a sword erected on a boulder and trying to swallow it from its tip—all in flames. Also see note 6 on Mount Narita in Episode 1.4.

  10Inari: though two Chinese characters meaning “rice” and “load” are applied to it, the word may derive from inanari, “rice growing.” Originally it referred to a shrine dedicated to the deities of the “five grains,” i.e., rice, wheat, millet, beans, and barnyard grass. At some point in history, however, the female deity of food, Miketsu-kami, was mixed up with the fox deity, of the same name, and, in consequence, inari shrines became strongly associated with the fox. In Edo, in particular, inari worship was so pervasive that a proverbial saying went alliteratively, Ise-ya inari ni inu no kuso, “Ise-ya, inari, and dog shit are everywhere.” Ise-ya was a shop name most favored by people from Ise Province. In Japanese belief the fox has the magical ability of transforming itself into anything and can be an agent of evil or goodness.

  11From 1677 to 1875, the largest prison complex in Japan. Among the many executed there was the scholar patriot Yoshida Shōin (1830–59).

  12Mikansui: sugar water boiled down and then mixed with water flavored with a couple of drops of lemon, grape, or (as here) orange juice.

  13“River kid”: an imaginary water creature that resembles a human boy four or five years old except that his face is like a tiger’s and he has a beak as well as a turtle-like carapace on his back. Another of his distinctive features is a plate-like dent atop his head; while out of water he can be active as long as water remains in that dent. He is said to play all sorts of nasty tricks on human beings, especially in the water. It is interesting that later on Naka uses the word “hatch” to describe the creature’s birth.

  14Deroren saimon: originally minstrels who recited simple sermons as they went from house to house for money. From Edo to Meiji, some of them became stage performers.

  15Senbon zakura, more fully Yoshitsune senbon zakura or Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, a jōruri written by Takeda Izumo (d. 1747) in collaboration with two other playwrights. The story combines the love affair between the warrior-commander Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–1589) and the dancer Shizuka with the episodes pertaining to some of the vanquished members of the Taira clan. In this typically convoluted jōruri play a fox transmogrifies himself into Satō Tadanobu (1141–86), one of Yoshitsune’s staunchly loyal soldiers, to follow the drum originally given by the Emperor to Yoshitsune, now in Shizuka’s possession. The reason: the drum uses the hides of the fox’s parents who were selected because they had “accumulated virtues for a thousand years” and acquired magical powers as a result. Made during the rule of Emperor Kanmu (737–806) for the imperial ritual of calling forth rain, the drum is named Hatsune, “First Sound,” the first cry of joy when it was struck and the rain came down. For a production of a kabuki version of this play, McCarthy, Childhood Years, pp. 107–10. For an early account of the relationship between Yoshitsune and Shizuka, Hiroaki Sato, Legends of the Samurai (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1995), pp. 144–50, and for descriptions of Tadanobu, pp. 132–52.

  16Short socks with a separate big toe and hooks above the heels. They were mostly used on formal occasions.

  17Japan has several large black swallowtails in the tribe Papilio. Which one of the following three species is meant here is not clear: “Black Swallowtail” (kuroageha), “Long-tailed Swallowtail” (onagaageha), or “Crow Swallowtail” (karasuageha).

  18Ushibeni, literally “ox rouge”: red ointment that used to be sold for lip sores during the period called kan, “cold,” which designates about thirty days before the setsubun, in early Second Month. For the purchase of this lip medication on the Day of the Ox, a crudely made bull-shaped toy was given free.

  19On the 13th of Sixth Month 1582, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–98), one of the commanders under the warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534–82), defeated another warrior-commander, Akechi Mitsuhide (1526–82), in Yamazaki, between Kyoto and Osaka, following the latter’s sudden rebellion and assassination of Nobunaga. The combat between Katō Kiyomasa (1562–1611), a warrior-commander under Hideyoshi, and Shiōten Masazane (d. 1623?), a warrior under Mitsuhide, is likely to be largely a tale imagined by professional narrators and kabuki writers. The name Shiōten (Yomota) Masazane usually comes with the court title Governor of Tajima.

  20Myōjin, “bright god”: any of the deities so designated by the Engi regulations of 927, or any shrine where one of them presides. Before the end of the Second World War there were at least four myōjin festivals a year, but here Naka refers to the Kanda Myōjin Festival, which in his days was held in mid-Ninth Month; today it is held in May.

  21A tadpole-like representation of water rising in the middle and flowing away centrifugally. A cluster of two, three, or four such figures in a circle is common.

  22According to some, shijinken means “four deities’ swords,” and it is also called shijinki, “four deities’ flags.” These swords or flags symbolize the four deities in Chinese tradition representing the four corners (directions) of heaven and the four seasons: Seiryū (Blue Dragon, representing east and spring); Suzaku (Scarlet Sparrow, south and summer); Genbu (Turtle or Half-turtle, Half-snake, north and winter); and Byakko (White Tiger, west and autumn). The names shijinki and shijinken were used interchangeably because the tip of each flag was adorned with a sword blade. As Naka, who originally had shishi komainu, “lion and koma-dog,” goes on to describe, however, by his time the shijinken referred to two gaudily painted lion heads made of wood. For komainu, see this Episode's note 25, below.

  23Maki-hōsho. Hōsho here refers to white quality paper used for ceremonial purposes.

  24Hōshu or hōju: a ball with a pointed head with flames rising from the tip of the head and two sides. Endowed with magical powers, it produces whatever you wish to have.

  25“Koma dogs”: a pair of leonine dog statues placed as talismans at the entrance of a shrine. What koma means or refers to is subject to debate. Some say the idea of setting up a pair of guardian lions or lion-headed dogs originated in Egypt and the Middle East.

  26A box-shaped lantern held up with a pole.
<
br />   27Taru-mikoshi. A mikoshi is a portable shrine carried by a group of men on certain festive occasions. For boys, sometimes a sake barrel is substituted for the shrine.

  28Yuzuriha, called “yielding-leaf” because the old leaves drop only after the new leaves have fully grown. Its Latin name is Daphniphyllum macropodum.

  29The name comes from the Chinese temple Shaolinsi that is famous as the place where the Dharma faced the wall for nine years and where karate originated. But it is a common temple name both in China and Japan. Horibe Isao thinks Naka used the name for the temple called Ryūkōji.

  30“Great Light”: Mahāvairocana in Sanskrit, the pantheistic main deity of esoteric Buddhism who embodies the universe. Here it is a temple enshrining the deity. Horibe thinks it was Myōsoku-in.

  31More fully, Pindolabhāradvāja in Sanskrit, called Binzuru in Japanese. The best of the Shakyamuni’s sixteen disciples, he was reprimanded for using the divine power he acquired after he took Buddhist vows. As a buddha with the ability to cure all sicknesses, his figure—represented in Japan as an old man with white hair and white eyebrows—used to be placed at the forefront of a Buddhist hall to enable people to do the kind of thing that Naka’s aunt does here, so he was popularly called “the rubbing buddha,” but for that very reason the placement of the figure at an accessible spot was later banned to prevent contagious diseases.

  32There are a number of jōruri and kabuki plays called Awa no Naruto mono, all of them with convoluted story lines. In one, Keisei Awa no Naruto, the samurai Awa Jūrobei, who has ruined his life through his infatuation with a courtesan and turned into a robber, kills O-Tsuru, a girl pilgrim, without knowing that she is his own daughter. The kind of “picture book” Naka mentions here obviously may have left out the more lurid part of such a story.