The Silver Spoon

by Kansuke Naka

  “I have also met the Lord Kōbō,”78 she said. “I have met the Lady Kannon,79 too.”

  After some days had passed I learned that she’d behaved so confidingly toward me not just because of the reasons I had thought and because I listened seriously to her stories, which, by today’s standards, were so superstitious as to invite mockery. The first time she saw me, she said, she’d thought, “Here’s a gentleman so deeply devoted to the Buddha he should have become a monk!”

  What other things did you think, I asked. She wrinkled up her face and said, “No, sir, nothing else.” But she was by nature unable to lie or keep anything to herself and she followed her denial with, “You see, sir, you’ll never be able to have a good bride.”

  She explained that, though I was deeply devout, I was also unable to become a monk because people had put up obstacles against me and would continue to do so from now on, too.

  “You mean being deeply devoted to the Buddha won’t do me any good?” I said as if aggrieved.

  She instantly made a serious face. “No, sir, not if you keep your single-minded faith. You see, the Lord Buddha’s powers are vast!” she emphasized as if she’d forgotten everything.

  “Unlike me you can read, so read the sutras,” so saying, she read my palm. “You see, all the lines for interference have disappeared. Yes, I have already had True Pledge80 for you but you haven’t abandoned Self-Reliance81 at all. You are a bad person,” she said and let my hand go.

  19

  One afternoon, while I was climbing the mountain behind us aiming for the large pine tree at its top, I lost my way and wandered into a pathless valley. Blindly pushing aside the bushes that were taller than I, cheeks whipped by the branches from bumpy shrubs, feet roughened by vine leaves like military fans,82 I barely managed to pull myself out of the suffocating depths onto a peak. The peak was shaped like a bull heaving itself out of the center of a deep valley that opened toward the sea. I followed a meandering trail along its back to its shoulder that rose up like a hump. Wizened short pines clung to reddish-brown fragments of granite that had coalesced into surfaces like shark skin, and droppings of birds who’d eaten tree seeds lay everywhere. Trying to prevent myself from sliding down toward the valley at any moment and holding onto the gritty rocks with my strength concentrated in the tips of my hands and feet, I finally managed to climb up on the hump that was the shoulder. In a sky brimming with glaring light the sun flew with waves of heat.

  From there it was a languid downward slope along the neck for about a hundred yards, with the cliffs on both sides becoming steeper, the valley deeper, until I reached a tiny flat space that corresponded to the snout, a dead-end atop a precipice. There, along the coast for about seven miles, an odd range of mountains, each one to two thousand feet high, branched out everywhere into the sea, forming countless coves. One of the three main branches was eroded by the water at its base, creating a formation that looked as if a wedge had been driven into it. With a peak behind, a series of higher rocky walls lined up like panels of folding screens beyond the valley; the blue sky serving as a ceiling, the place formed a monstrous cathedral. A falcon above my head, with its rising calls, made a quick descent from time to time, cutting the air before my eyes to rise up high again into the sky.

  Looking down into the valley to the right, I spotted a single trail meandering through the black luxuriating forests as if sewing the range of mountains together while it descended toward a village beyond. And in a crack that afforded only a glimpse, I could see mountain after mountain, each one folded upon the next, layer upon layer of them endlessly, red, light-red, purple, light-purple, all leading up to the clouds. Filled with admiration and bliss mixed with a kind of terror, I started to sing in a high-pitched voice. Echo! It repeated me, as if someone were hiding behind the mountains, following me. Incited by the song of the singer who did not reveal himself, I sang with the highest voice I could manage. He similarly sang with the highest voice he could manage. As always I felt a primitive joy about something that was all so understandable when you thought about it. And after spending a happy half day singing, around the time the summer sun sank into the sea, I finally returned to the place within the fence of “yielding leaf” trees.83

  20

  To wash my feet I went around to the backyard and, deciding that by now the bath had to be ready, opened the bathroom door and got in. And completely immersing myself in the bathtub with water that had cooled down just so, I stretched out my tired legs, relaxed, comfortable. The water crept up to my nipples and gave me a sensation as if I’d tied them up lightly with a thread. With both hands holding down my body as it tended to float up, I rested my head, face up, on the rim of the bathtub and, occasionally blowing on my warmed body, relived the happiness of the day. I named the place Echo’s Peak. That it was found because I happened to take a wrong path, that therefore there was no one other than me who knew about it, that to get there you had to rush over that dangerous cliff—all this gave me an even greater joy.

  After a while, somehow I found myself eyeing the stagnant surface of the water. And I noticed that though almost imperceptible, it had a thin, white sheen of body oil that I hadn’t seen before. Had someone taken a bath already? When I thought that, it seemed to explain everything. Someone else must have come. I began to feel a sudden, profound anxiety. To me, someone I didn’t know was someone I disliked. So, utterly sobered up, I was in a funk when my maid, noticing, came in to help me wash.84 And apologizing for not having changed the water, she said the young wife from the Tokyo house had come. There shouldn’t have been anyone like that in my friend’s household. He’d told me his older sister who was in Kyoto would be coming to Tokyo this summer, so perhaps this was her. If so, there was nothing I could do, and I resigned myself to it, but I thought it was trouble nonetheless. Before leaving me, the maid lowered her voice in an exaggerated fashion and said, “She’s such a beautiful, beautiful person.”

  I stealthily went to my room like someone with something to be ashamed of and sat lost, leaning back against the post. Nothing is more bothersome than meeting someone for the first time and saying something appropriate. And the pain of sitting stiffly in front of some unfamiliar person is like being tied up with an invisible rope, in the end making me feel as if the space between my eyebrows is being squeezed, the area around my shoulders becoming hot as if scorched. She seems to be in the detached room beyond. If she’s my friend’s older sister that I’ve heard about, I wouldn’t mind much, but what am I expected to do? I was chasing one such thought after another when quiet footsteps approached on the porch and suddenly stopped beyond the shoji. Even as I was removing myself from the post to reposition myself before my desk, a calm, soft voice said, “Excuse me,” and as if the voice itself opened it, the shoji slid open.

  “Oh my, I haven’t even given you a lamp yet,” I heard her say as if to herself, and in the dim rectangle of the doorway, a white face was clearly embossed.

  “How do you do? I am so-and-so’s older sister. I am taking the liberty of staying here for a few days.”

  “Yes.” That was all I could say, and I simply awaited the sentence for my crime. But she gracefully placed before me a plate with fragrant Western cookies on it.

  “I have nothing special to offer . . . I don’t even know if you like these,” she said. At that moment the solemn, cold statue abruptly turned into a beautiful person and smiled somewhat bashfully. But then, as she said, “I’ll fetch a lamp now,” she turned back into a statue, and disappeared into the darkness.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Even while embarrassed that I was so pitiful, I tried to remember the figure that had disappeared, but it was all dream-like and amorphous. However, as I kept still, eyes closed, things gradually began to take shape as when you suddenly walk out into the light. Her hair was done in a large “round-knot” style. It was jet-black hair. Beneath distinct eyebrows shone jet-black eyes. The outline of everything about her was so clear that I felt it would be difficult t
o get used to her or close to her, and I thought even her lovely lips—the lower one protruding a little from the upper one—looked as if chiseled from cold coral from the bottom of the sea. But when both ends of that mouth pleasantly pulled up and pretty teeth appeared, a zephyr-like smile softened all, her white cheeks blushing, turning the statue into a beautiful person.

  21

  From then on, I do not know why, but in my attempt to avoid coming face to face with her, I would go to Echo’s Peak the first thing in the morning and, in returning, deliberately shun mealtimes. Even so, living in the same house, at times we had to be together during the day. Up on the peak I would not sing. Like a bird out of season. And I would spend the whole time vaguely looking at the deep hues of the mountains visible between the rocky walls.

  One night, very late, I was standing among the flowerbeds, looking at the moon rising from the mountain behind us. Thousands of insects were tinkling their bells, and the briny winds, coming over the fields, were carrying the fragrance of the sea and the sounds of waves. The round window of the detached room showed the light was on inside, and in the lotus vat in front of it I could see several leaves and white folded flowers with the coolness of the evening shower that had just passed turned into dewdrops on them. Sunk in the nameless thoughts that are the deepest of all thoughts, I was oblivious to everything as I gazed at the moon that was growing more and more crippled85 night by night. . . . Suddenly I noticed the older sister standing in the same flowerbeds. Both moon and flowers disappeared. Just as when a water bird swoops down on the surface of the pond reflecting picturesque shadows, all the shadows disappear at once, leaving only the white figure that casually floats on it.

  Agitated, I began, “The moon . . .” but just then, unfortunately, she, out of consideration for me, started to turn away, startling me, making me blush, ears burning. Such trivial things, a little mistake with a word or a confusion, would embarrass me terribly. Older sister continued her quiet walk, making a small turn around the flowers and returning to where she had been and, as she did so, said, “. . . is truly wonderful.”

  The way she rescued me so skillfully made me both truly happy and grateful.

  22

  The next day I went to the detached room to return the newspaper and found her combing her hair, her back turned toward me. Her long hair, softly uncoiling, slid down her shoulders over her back in abundant waves. I was about to close the shoji and leave when she stopped, her hand holding the comb near her ear, and her face in the mirror smiled.

  “Wait. I am leaving here tomorrow,” she said. “I’d like to have a farewell supper with you. . . .”

  I again climbed Echo’s Peak and spent half the day in nature’s cathedral, without singing, with nothing to see but a falcon dancing in the sky. The echo, too, remained quiet, not disturbing the thoughts of his familiar singing companion.

  The dinner table was covered with a snow-white tablecloth. The granny on one side, the older sister and I sat facing each other. I was at once bashful, happy, lonesome, and sad.

  “Please, do begin,” she gave a light nod. “Your cook isn’t used to being one. . . . I don’t know if you are going to like these.”

  A little shyly she turned her eyes to the plates and smiled. There the tofu she had made herself trembled, the indigo of the plate pattern almost dyeing its white skin. She grated the yuzu86 for us. The light-green powder softly sprinkled over it, the tofu looked as if about to melt. I put it in the broth and the dark shrimp color swished over it. I then placed it delicately on my tongue. The quiet fragrance of yuzu, the sharp taste of the soy sauce, the cold, slippery touch of it all. I rolled it around on my tongue a couple of times and it melted, leaving a faintly starchy taste. On another plate, pert-looking baby mackerels lined up their tails, bodies arched. The parts where their spiky scales had been removed chestnut-hued, their backs blue, the area toward their bellies gleaming, each fish had a uniquely warm smell. Tear a large chunk of its flesh, dunk it in broth, eat it, and a rich flavor comes out.

  SUIMITSUTŌ: PEACHES

  After the tableware was taken away, fruits were offered. From among the large pears older sister selected a sweet-looking one and peeled it. With strength concentrated in the tips of her fingers to prevent the heavy fruit from slipping down, she made a ring like the shō flute out of it. As she turned the pear round and round with her long, arched fingers, the yellow skin went over the back of her white hand and coiled down cloud-shaped. With the juice dripping, she said, I don’t like it much, and put it on a plate for me. I took a slice out of it and put it in my mouth and while doing this watched a beautiful cherry being held lightly between her lips, then slip-tumble onto her small tongue. Her jaw, shapely as a seashell, moved comfortably.

  Older sister was unusually cheerful. Granny, too, was in a rollicking mood. She even proposed to guess the number of my teeth. As children often do, she hid her face behind the back of the older sister for a long think.

  “Not counting the wisdom teeth, I’d say you have twenty-eight teeth, don’t you, sir?”

  “Everyone has twenty-eight.”

  “No, that can’t be true, sir. The Lord Shakyamuni had more than forty teeth,” she said, and wouldn’t make any concession. At this, both ends of older sister’s mouth pleasantly rose and revealed her own beautiful teeth. Then, when, continuing some earlier talk, we brought up the subject of birds, granny said the mountains of her province had swarms of white herons. Geese came, and ducks came. Flocks of cranes also came in great numbers. Every year, as if set by some rule, a pair of white-naped cranes came and when they did, the report was passed up to the lord of the province. Storks called, turning their necks. The nest they built on the great cedar of the pacification shrine87 was woven from twigs and looked like a basket. She chattered on, carried away, so I asked, When did all that happen? and she said, When I was a child.

  “Well then they are no longer there.”

  “But there were so many of them, you see. Besides they give birth to their children every year, don’t they?” she stubbornly insisted.

  The ends of that beautiful mouth rose sharply and I saw those white teeth.

  Older sister was supposed to leave the next morning but for some reason her departure was postponed until night. In the evening when I’d finished bathing, granny seemed to be out on some errand, for the rooms were dark and I was about to step out into the flowerbeds. At that moment a voice came from the round window of the detached room.

  “I had to borrow your lamp for a while.” Then the older sister came with a white peach on a tray to say her farewell.

  “I pray you will be well and happy. When you have a chance to come to Kyoto again, please do visit me.”

  I stepped down into the garden, sat on a seat among the flowerbeds, and watched the stars turning round toward the sea, toward the sea. The sound of distant waves, the sounds of insects, and heaven . . . that was all there was. The maid brought a hired jinrikisha. I saw older sister, now all ready and beautifully dressed, hurry to my room to return the lamp. In a while, following the maid who was carrying out her luggage, she, passing by on the porch toward the foyer, stopped, and bowed a little toward me.

  “Be well and happy,” she said, but I, I do not know why, pretended not to hear.

  “Good-bye, be well and happy.”

  In the darkness I silently lowered my head. The echo of the jinrikisha receded into the distance and there was the sound of the gate being shut. Hiding amid the flowers I wiped the tears that endlessly rolled down. Why did I not say anything? Why on earth did I not say a word of salutation? I stood in the flowerbeds until my skin grew cold and, only when the moon, more crippled than the previous night, began to shine from beyond the mountain, did I return to my room. And leaning my elbows on the desk dispiritedly, I held on my palms the white peach faintly reddened like cheeks and comfortably ample like a chin and gently put my lips on it as if to envelop it. And as I inhaled the sweet smell seeping out of its delicate skin, I shed
fresh tears.

  MANAZURU: WHITE-NAPED CRANES

  1The war between Japan and China—the Qing or Manchu Dynasty at the time—over Korea’s sovereignty that began in July 1894 and ended in May 1895.

  2Xiyouji or The Record of a Westward Journey, or as Anthony Yu who made the first complete English translation calls it, The Journey to the West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). As Yu explains, it is a story “loosely based on the famous pilgrimage of Xuanzhuang (602–64), the monk who went from China to India in quest of Buddhist scriptures.” A collection of wondrous tales put together probably by Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1500–82), it features a monkey, a pig, a kappa, and a horse, all with magical powers, as guardians of the traveling monk. Arthur Waley’s Monkey: Folk Novel of China (Grove Press, 1994) is an abbreviated translation.

  3A proverbial saying. A variation: “A man is allowed to cry only when he is born and when his parents die.” Another: “A man is allowed to cry only three times in his lifetime: at birth, at his parent’s death, and when his shin’s hit.” A similar variation: “A man is allowed to laugh only once every three years,” because to laugh is to lose male dignity.

  4Yamato damashii. Yamato, originally a small area in today’s Nara, finally came to designate all of Japan. Ueda Akinari (1734–1809) characterized something like Yamato damashii—that which the people of one country regard as the spiritual essence of their being—as the “stink” of that country. In Part 6 of I Am a Cat, Natsume Sōseki makes fun of this indomitable Japanese spirit by having the main character announce mockingly that every Japanese, from the victor at the Battle of Tsushima, Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, on down, has it: a pickpocket, a fishmonger, confidence man, a mountebank, a murderer.