by Неизвестный
“Oh, the dancing girl is still at the party. She’s sitting, playing the drum.”
I could not bear the silences when the drum stopped. I sank down into the depths of the sound of the rain.
At length I could hear the noise of confused footsteps—were they playing tag or dancing in circles? Then all fell silent. I opened my eyes wide, trying to peer through the darkness. What was this stillness? I was tormented, wondering if the dancing girl’s night might be sullied.
I closed the shutters and crawled into bed, but my chest felt heavy. I went down again for a bath. I thrashed the water. The rain stopped and the moon came out. The autumn night was bright, washed clean by the rain. I slipped out of the bathhouse barefoot, but I could not do anything. It was past two o’clock.
3
After nine o’clock the next morning, the man from the troupe called on me at my inn. I had just awakened, so I invited him along to the bath. It was a cloudless, almost springlike day in southern Izu. The water had risen in the stream beside the inn and reflected the warm sun. My previous night’s anguish seemed like a dream. Still, I broached the subject with the man.
“You were having quite a time last night. The drum was going until late.”
“What? You could hear it?”
“Yes, I could.”
“It was for some local folks. They make such a racket. It’s not much fun.”
He appeared unconcerned, so I said no more.
“Look. They’re over at the other bath. I think they’ve noticed us. They’re laughing.”
He pointed across the stream toward the public bath on the other side. I could distinguish seven or eight bodies through the steam.
Suddenly a naked woman ran out from the rear of the dark bathhouse. She stood at the edge of the changing area as if she might come flying down the bank. She was shouting with her arms outstretched. She was stark naked, without even a towel. It was the dancing girl. When I gazed at her white body, legs stretched, standing like a young paulownia tree, I felt pure water flowing through my heart. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed out loud. She’s a child—a child who can run out naked in broad daylight, overcome with joy at finding me, and stand tall on her tiptoes. I kept laughing with delight. My head was clear as though wiped clean. I could not stop smiling.
The dancing girl’s hair had been arranged too elaborately for her age. She had looked seventeen or eighteen. What’s more, she had been dressed like a young woman in her prime. I had made a ridiculous mistake.
After I returned to my room with the man, the oldest girl came to the garden at my inn and stood looking at the chrysanthemum bed. The dancing girl had stopped halfway across the bridge. The older woman came out of the public bath and glanced over at the two of them. The dancing girl smiled and shrugged her shoulders at me as if to indicate that she would be scolded if she didn’t go back. She hurried away.
The older woman walked out as far as the bridge and called to me. “Please come visit us.”
“Please come visit us,” the oldest girl repeated. Then they left. However, the man stayed until late afternoon.
That evening I was playing go with a traveling paper wholesaler when I heard a drum in the garden. I started to get up. “Some entertainers have come looking for customers.”
“What? Them? They’re nothing. Well, then, it’s your turn. I put my stone here.” The paper seller pointed at the board, intent on the game. But now I was restless. It sounded as though the entertainers were leaving. The man called from the garden.
“Good night.”
I went out to the window in the hall and motioned for them to come up. The entertainers whispered among themselves in the garden, then walked around to the entrance.
“Good evening.” After the man, the three girls each bowed to the two of us, kneeling on the floor like geisha.
It suddenly became apparent that I had lost the go game. “There doesn’t appear to be any way out. I give up.”
“You think so? I think I’m the one who’s on the short side. Either way, it’s close.”
The paper dealer kept playing, studying the board and counting points without even a glance at the entertainers. The girls placed their drums and shamisen in the corner of the room, then started playing a game of “five-in-a-row” on a Chinese chessboard. Meanwhile, I indeed lost the go game that I had previously been winning.
“How about it? One more round, just one more round,” the paper dealer pleaded. He was persistent, but I just smiled vacantly. He gave up and left the room. The girls came over to the go board.
“Are you making the rounds again this evening?” I asked.
“Yes, we are, but . . .” The man looked toward the girls. “What do you think? Shall we just forget about it and have a good time instead?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Won’t you get in trouble?”
“What do you mean? We wouldn’t find any customers anyway, even if we did make the rounds.”
We played “five-in-a-row” and enjoyed ourselves until past midnight.
After the entertainers left, I could not get to sleep.
My mind was so keen. I stepped into the hall and called out, “Hey, Mr. Paper Dealer!”
The man, who was about sixty, sprang out of his room, elated. “It’s all night tonight! We’re going to play until morning.”
Now I, too, felt ready for a good battle.
4
We had agreed to leave Yugano at eight o’clock the next morning. Wearing a hunting cap I had bought at a shop beside the public bath, I stuffed my school cap into the bottom of my bag and walked over to the cheap lodging house on the roadside. The sliding doors were all open on the second floor, so I casually went upstairs. The entertainers were still in bed. I stood in the hall, confused.
Lying at my feet, the dancing girl blushed and quickly covered her face with her hands. She was sharing a futon with the middle girl. She still had on her heavy makeup from the night before. The rouge on her lips and the corners of her eyes was slightly smudged. Her emotional appearance as she lay there touched my heart. She turned away as if to avoid the light. Hiding her face with her hands, she slid out of the covers and knelt in the hall.
“Thank you for last night.” She gave a pretty bow. I felt awkward standing over her.
The man was sleeping with the oldest girl. Until then, I had had no idea they were a couple.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The older woman spoke, sitting up halfway. “I know we had planned to leave today, but we were told there’s to be a big party this evening where we can perform, so we decided to stay one more night. If you have to move on today, we could meet in Shimoda. We’ve already decided to stay at an inn there called Koshuya. It’s easy to find.” I felt as though I had been dismissed.
“Why don’t you wait and leave tomorrow?” the man spoke up. “As she said, we’re staying an extra day. I’m sorry. We’d like to keep you on as a traveling companion. Why don’t you go with us tomorrow?”
“Yes. Let’s do that,” the woman added. “After all, you’ve come with us this far. I’m sorry we’re being so selfish. We’ll leave tomorrow, even if it’s raining spears outside. The day after tomorrow is the forty-ninth day since the baby died. Since it died while we were on the road, we’ve been planning all along that we should commemorate the forty-ninth day in Shimoda. We’ve been hurrying to get there by tomorrow. It’s probably not proper for me to tell you so much, but it’s like we have some kind of connection to you from a previous life. Would you offer devotions with us the day after tomorrow?”
I decided to delay my departure. I went downstairs and talked with the clerk in the dirty office of the lodging house while I waited for the entertainers. The man came down and invited me to go for a walk with him. Along the road to the south was a beautiful bridge. Leaning against the railing, the man began to tell me more about himself. He had acted in a new-style kabuki troupe in Tokyo for a time and said he still performed occasionally at the po
rt on Ōshima. That explained the sword sheath that stuck out of their luggage like an appendage. He told me he also performed when they entertained at gatherings. The wicker trunk held the costumes they used, as well as pots, dishes, and other household effects.
“It’s wretched, the mess I’ve made of my life. But my older brother in Kofu is doing fine as family heir, keeping up the reputation of the family. So, I would be of no use anyway.”
“All along I thought you were from Nagaoka Hot Springs.”
“Did you? The oldest girl there with us, she’s my wife. She’s a year younger than you—nineteen. Our second baby was born prematurely, on the road. It lived just a week. My wife still hasn’t recovered her full health. The older woman is her mother. The dancing girl is my own little sister.”
“So the fourteen-year-old sister you told me about is? . . .”
“She’s the one. Actually, it bothers me; I didn’t want my sister to have to live like this, but it’s a long story.”
Then he told me his name was Eikichi, his wife’s was Chiyoko, and his sister’s was Kaoru. The other girl, Yuriko, seventeen years old, was the only native of Ōshima. She was employed by them.
Eikichi stared down at the river shallows. He became sentimental and appeared to be on the brink of tears.
As we walked back, we found the dancing girl, her face washed clean of the white makeup, crouching by the road, petting the puppy on the head. I spoke to her as I started back to my room alone. “Come on over,” I said. “But, by myself, I . . .”
“So, come with your brother.”
“We’ll be right there.”
Before long Eikichi came to my room.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“The old lady is so strict with the girls.”
However, we had been playing “five-in-a-row” only a short while when the girls came across the bridge and upstairs. They bowed politely as always and hesitated, kneeling in the hallway. First, Chiyoko, the oldest, stood up.
“This is my room. Don’t be so formal. Come on in,” she said.
The entertainers stayed about an hour, then went down to the inn bath. They begged me to come along, but I put them off. I said I would go later, since there would be three girls in the bath. Shortly, the dancing girl came back upstairs alone to relay a message from Chiyoko.
“She said to come on down. She’ll rinse your shoulders for you.”
I did not go. Instead I played “five-in-a-row” with the dancing girl. She was surprisingly good. Earlier, when she had played “winner-stays” against Eikichi and the other girls, she had defeated them all handily. I usually win at “five-in-a-row,” but I needed all my skill with her. It was refreshing not to have to make easy moves for her. With just the two of us there, the dancing girl initially sat back, playing her stones from a distance with her arm outstretched. But gradually she forgot herself and hunched over the board, absorbed in the game. Her unnaturally beautiful black hair almost touched my chest. Without warning, she blushed. “Please forgive me. I’ll get in trouble.” Tossing down her stones, she fled the room. The older woman was standing outside the public bath. Chiyoko and Yuriko rushed out of the bath at my inn and hurried back to their lodging house without coming upstairs.
Again Eikichi stayed at the inn with me from morning until late afternoon. The proprietress, a simple, honest woman, warned me against keeping his company, saying it was a waste to feed a fellow like him.
That evening, when I went to the entertainers’ lodging house, I found the dancing girl receiving a shamisen lesson from the older woman. She stopped playing when she saw me but resumed after the woman said something to her. Whenever the girl’s voice rose as she was singing, the woman reprimanded her. “I told you, not so loud.”
Eikichi had been called over to the banquet room of the inn on the other side of the road. I could see him across the way. From where I watched, it looked as though he were groaning.
“What’s he doing?”
“That? . . . It’s chanting from a nō drama.”
“Nō drama? It sounds strange.”
“He’s a jack-of-all-trades. You never know what he’ll do.”
A man of about forty who said he was a poulterer was also staying at the lodging house. He opened the partition between the rooms and invited the girls to have dinner with him. The dancing girl took her chopsticks and went over with Yuriko. They picked through the chicken stew that remained after the man had ravaged the pot. As the girls were returning to their own room, the man patted the dancing girl’s shoulder. The woman glared at him.
“Hey, don’t touch her. She’s an innocent virgin.”
The dancing girl addressed the man as “uncle” and asked him to read “The Story of the Lord of Mito” to her, but he left immediately. She did not want to ask me directly, so she told the woman that she would like me to read the rest of “The Story of the Lord of Mito” to her. I picked up the book, with a certain expectation in my heart. Just as I hoped, the dancing girl scooted over beside me. Once I began reading, she brought her face close enough to touch my shoulder, her expression serious. Her eyes sparkled as she gazed at my forehead without blinking. It seemed to be her habit when she was being read to. Earlier, I had noticed that she had held her face right beside the poulterer. The dancing girl’s most beautiful feature was her sparkling big dark eyes. The curve of her double eyelids was unspeakably lovely. Next was her flowerlike smile. In her case, the word “flowerlike” was absolutely accurate.
A moment later, the maid from the inn came to call for the dancing girl. She put on her costume.
“I’ll be back soon, so please wait. And read the rest to me.”
Out in the hallway she bowed low.
“I’ll return soon.”
“Don’t sing,” the woman said. The dancing girl picked up her drum and nodded slightly. The woman turned back to me. “Her voice is changing now.”
The dancing girl knelt properly in the second floor of the restaurant, beating the drum. I could watch her back from the window as though she were in the next room. The sound of the drum set my heart dancing.
“When the drum enters, the party certainly does liven up.” The woman was also looking across the way.
Chiyoko and Yuriko went to the same gathering. About an hour later, all four returned.
“This is all we got.” The dancing girl dropped some fifty-sen coins from her fist into the older woman’s palm. I read “The Story of the Lord of Mito” out loud for a while. Then they talked about the baby that had died while they were on the road. They said the baby was almost as transparent as water at birth and did not even have the strength to cry. Nevertheless, it lived for a week.
My common goodwill—which neither was mere curiosity nor bore any trace of contempt for their status as itinerant entertainers—seemed to have touched their hearts. Before I knew it, they had decided that I should accompany them to their place on Ōshima.
“The house where Grandpa lives would be good. It’s big, and it would be quiet if we chased Grandpa out. You could stay as long as you wanted. And you could study.” They made this announcement to me after conferring among themselves.
“We have two small houses. The one in the mountains is usually empty.”
Moreover, I was to help out during New Year holidays when they performed at the port in Habu.
I realized that their sense of the road was not so hardened as I had first supposed. Rather, it was more of a lighthearted attitude that had not lost the scent of the fields. They were bound together by the familial affection you would expect between parent and child or brother and sister. The hired girl, Yuriko, was the only one who was sullen around me. Perhaps she was at the age when a girl is most bashful.
I left their lodging house halfway through the night. The girls came downstairs to see me off. The dancing girl placed my clogs at the door so I could step into them easily. She stuck her head out the gate and looked up at the bright sky.
“Oh, the mo
on! We’ll be in Shimoda tomorrow. How wonderful. We’ll have the baby’s forty-ninth-day services. Mother will buy me a comb. We’ll do all kinds of things! Would you take me to see a movie?”
The port of Shimoda—it had the air of a hometown that the itinerant entertainers who traveled around the hot springs in Izu and Sagami longed for when they were on the road.
5
The entertainers were carrying the same luggage they had hauled through Amagi Pass. The puppy rested his paws on the woman’s arm, looking like a seasoned traveler. Just outside Yugano we found ourselves again in the mountains. The sun hanging over the sea warmed the slopes. We gazed toward the morning sun. Kawazu Beach spread wide in the sunlight out where the Kawazu River flowed.
“That’s Ōshima over there, isn’t it?” I said.
“Of course it is. See how big it looks. Please do come,” the dancing girl said.
Perhaps the autumn sky was too dazzling; the sea near the sun looked misted over, as it is in the spring. It was another twelve-mile walk from there to Shimoda. For a while the ocean was blocked from view. Chiyoko began to sing a carefree song.
Along the way I was asked whether I preferred to take the main road, which was easier, or a steep path over the mountains that was well over a mile shorter. Naturally I chose the shortcut.
It was an abrupt climb through the trees. I feared we would slip on the fallen leaves. I got so winded that half in desperation, I pressed down on my knees with the palms of my hands to pick up my pace. Every time I glanced back, the others had fallen farther behind until I could only hear their voices among the trees, except for the dancing girl, who was holding up her skirts and trudging along behind me. She was trailing me by about two yards, neither trying to close the distance between us nor dropping farther back. When I turned and spoke to her, she paused as if startled, then smiled and replied. When she spoke to me, I waited, to give her a chance to catch up. But I should have known that she would stop short and refuse to take a step until I did. When the path twisted and grew even steeper, I quickened my pace again and found the dancing girl climbing intently, as always, just a couple of yards behind me. The mountains were still. The rest of the group was so far behind I could no longer hear them talking.