The camera moved down to the young man’s feet. And then, there…there was a little boy. I reeled in shock once more. The boy’s limbs were skinny and fine, and he looked pale.
This…what was this?
Objectively speaking, he was not at all cute. I couldn’t find any special appeal in him. Huh. So I was once nothing more than one of those surly children you so often see? An uncomfortable doubt grew in my heart. Why would they go out of their way to save the life of this dull child? Why had they risked such danger for him? And why had they loved him the way they did?
Yoji jokingly pretended to bite my neck. And quickly stopped, like he was embarrassed. The look on his face was so shy, so kindhearted. He slowly lifted his head. He looked this way and said something as he stretched out a slender arm.
Ohh, he’s changing places with the cameraman.
A bearded young man with large, jet-black eyes and dark skin appeared. Unblinking, I stared at the figure of my former Bamboo. He too was incredibly young. He looked almost childish. With an innocent smile on his face, he grabbed me and tossed me up toward the ceiling. A shrill laugh was ripped out of me. My voice wasn’t at all endearing, either. It sounded hysterical, an unpleasant din.
But he, my old Bamboo—he alone dazzled the eye each time he laughed, his face shining. In this scene from my past, the Bamboo were beautiful. And I was an ugly child.
Hey, Mustah? Yoji? Back then. Why…did you love me?
Klak, klak, klak. The projector sounded dull somehow.
Finally, the film ended. I let out a long breath. A mysterious pain lingered deep in my heart. As if a long period of time I could never get back had run right by me.
That night, thoroughly exhausted, I took my medicine, and I had no sooner sat down on the sofa than I was fast asleep.
The sofa was sweetly familiar, a fond memory. I had used it as a bed when I was a child. I had slept here with my feet sticking out even after I had started high school and had grown too tall for it. And now too, when I abruptly woke in the middle of the night, I found I had rolled over so that my legs were dangling from the knees down against the side of the sofa, feet on the floor.
I had woken up to the sound of someone apparently coming into the house. It was summer, but I felt a cold breeze on my face. I suddenly called out the names of my wife and son. Is it you? Are you here? But perhaps I only thought the dead had come for me because I was tired and still half-asleep. I opened my eyes and looked around, but there was no one there, of course. I was alone.
Well, whatever. I’ll just take it slow.
I fell once more into a deep sleep.
One day, rather belatedly, I realized that there was no clock among the meager possessions I’d brought with me, and I looked around, troubled.
I reached out to the old wall clock, frozen in a moment in time ever since who knew when. Now that I was an adult, my hand reached it easily. I adjusted the dusty thing and carefully wound it. The clock groaned unpleasantly, and then the hands started to move once more. I was overcome by the strange feeling that time wasn’t flowing into the future, but rather returning to the past with each tic of those hands. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. Unconsciously, I laughed silently.
I let my gaze wander casually over the pillar I had been leaning against. It felt like the clock had triggered some memory from the past.
Oh! I realized what it was. I crouched down on the spot and looked quietly at the marks on the surface of the pillar. Several horizontal lines. The day and year written in marker. The lowest mark was somewhere between my chest and my stomach.
Aah. The youthful voices of the Bamboo shouting in delight. They got so carried away as they measured me. I was so little back then. I could almost see the scene before me again, like it had also been restored to me in the 8 mm film.
I got to my knees and hung my head helplessly. I stared out of the corner of my eye. Had I really been that little? It was such a long time ago. I stroked the pillar endlessly with the palm of my hand.
I had felt confused, uncertain, the day I returned to the cottage, but over the past few days, those feelings had started to shift into something more peaceful. Each time these bits of the past drew close and gently wound around me, I was embraced by a familiar fondness and a distant love.
The waves sounded out as if to encourage me.
I got used to my life alone in the cottage. Eating through my meager savings, I read books, listened to music. I went to the hospital, got my medicine, came home.
Perhaps increasingly worried about the old man out on the coast, the young man from the real estate agency would check in on me from time to time. “Are you doing all right here?” He told me various things about the area whenever he stopped by, and it seemed that, both above and below, the towns were as they had been. That is to say, both were full of fighting. I supposed that the humans grew old and were just replaced one after another with new faces, while the town itself didn’t change much.
I baked cake and cookies for when he’d come by, and he took them home gladly. I guess he gave them to his mother. A friend removed in age—I’m not sure if I could call him that, but, well, he was nice to have around.
“It really isn’t safe around here. Make sure you lock your doors… That said, though, it doesn’t really look like there’s much here to steal, eh?”
“There’s not. Ha ha ha!”
“And you just laugh. You really are easygoing, huh?”
“I don’t have anything to protect anymore. That’ll make a person easygoing, you know? Oh, that reminds me. How’s your mom doing?”
“Good. Oh! That cake, she really liked it. Says she’d happily have more of it.”
“I can do that. I’ll bake another one for her.”
I wondered how many more years—no, months I’d be able to keep living here like this?
Either way, time gently flowed on.
And then, one night after two weeks or so. One fateful night.
I was sleeping on the sofa again. I had to force myself in there at an angle, which left my legs from the knees down dangling over the side. The sound of the waves outside was comforting. The ticking of the wall clock, functional once again, wasn’t too bad either.
Wait. There was another noise.
It came from the terrace. I cocked my head to the side, wondering if it was a burglar. It was, after all, a dangerous neighborhood. Plenty of people were cruelly killed for the bit of cash they had.
I didn’t want to deal with it. And for a while, I kept lying on the sofa, but eventually I got up reluctantly. And I saw a skinny girl in a summer school uniform standing like a ghost on the other side of the glass.
I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t scared. On the contrary, she looked like someone I knew well, and I even felt a deep affection.
“Nako? Sister?”
For a moment, I thought perhaps my ride from the other side had come for me.
But there was no answer.
I strained my eyes. Long hair hanging down past her shoulders, very shy eyes. She was stepping from one foot to the other, like something was upsetting her. From the look of her, she was still only thirteen or fourteen. I looked closely at her face.
No, I didn’t know this girl. This wasn’t my sister’s ghost.
The fog gradually cleared from my half-asleep brain. “What’s wrong? Are you lost?” I asked, gently.
Thinking about it, there was no way a girl in uniform could walk around safely by herself in a neighborhood this bad, this late at night. Which meant I was dealing with someone mysterious. I could be in danger if I carelessly opened the door. But I was already old, with not much longer left to me, and it seemed foolish somehow for a grown man to be afraid of a lone girl.
I stood up. I unlocked the glass doors and slid them open. I peered at the girl’s face. “Where’d you come from?”
&n
bsp; The girl averted her eyes. She looked back and stared toward the darkness where the ocean spread out behind the house. Following her gaze, I turned my eyes that way as well, but of course there was no one there.
The summer night was humid and hot. The sandy beach held the day’s heat and shimmered slightly like a mirage. The light of the moon was very beautiful. A quiet night. The sound of the waves alone eased the heart. It was a good night to die. I wasn’t afraid.
I peered at the girl’s face again and offered her a joking smile. “Are you maybe a Bamboo? Something like that?”
“I am!” The answer came from the darkness.
I gasped and lifted my face.
Instantly, the girl turned on her heel and ran into the night. Her slender retreating figure shuddered violently, threatening to snap in half.
Aah, just now was… That was a voice I could never forget.
I was stunned into silence. And then I smiled slowly. I waited for him to come out of the darkness.
The young man strode up to the terrace lazily and stopped. The girl hid fearfully behind him and stared up at me.
I looked closely. At a glance, I could tell he was a lone stray Bamboo. He stood leaning to one side, but in a way that made it seem like he didn’t actually realize he was off-kilter. His dark skin was now jet-black with filth. His black hair was disheveled, tangled like a rat’s nest. His beard was gray with all the dust and dirt stuck to it. His clothes were also a disaster. Buried under layers of shirts and vests and coats, he looked like a mountain of old rags.
The many days since that night!
He was the only partner for me. So, from now on, well, I’ll just go it alone. His voice, trying so hard to be bright, flooded my ears.
I staggered into a run, nothing like the energetic dashes I’d managed back then, though. My legs got tangled up. Lurching, I managed to make it to him somehow. I reached out and hugged him. If he were a vision, he would have turned into white mist and disappeared the instant I touched him. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he had. It was that kind of night.
But he stayed in my arms, solid. The scent of bamboo tickled my nostrils. I tried to speak, and of course all I could do was say his name. “Aah, Mustah…”
“So you came back, huh, little Kyo!”
“Mustah! Mustah! Mustah!”
“I knew last week. I came to visit one night, and I saw you sleeping there. And then I couldn’t decide whether or not we should actually meet. But, you know…”
“You knew I was back? You should’ve come and seen me right away! I wanted to look for you, Mustah! But it’s not like a human would be able to tell me where to find a Bamboo. Oh!” I surprised myself and clapped a hand over my mouth. Because I had reverted to speaking like a girl again. It was as if, in the very instant of this reunion, that long-gone time had come rushing back to me.
I stared into his eyes. They were gentle, playful. He looked filthy, but his skin was as young as ever, his physique was exactly the same. Bamboo really didn’t age.
I suddenly became ashamed and started fidgeting. “I’ve gotten really old, huh? Mustah, don’t stare at me so much.”
“You turned out wonderfully, Kyo!” His voice swelled with pride.
I gasped and looked back at him. Now that I thought about it, he had watched over me in the film like I was so adorable he could hardly stand it, despite the fact that I was objectively a dull, small child. And that day we parted too, he kept telling me how I was a very special flame to them. So then, did I look like a special, wonderful something to Mustah’s eyes alone, even now?
“I’m a flame on the verge of going out.”
“A flame’s a flame! And, like…”
“Hmm?”
“Kyo, you kept your promise to me!” He looked up at me. In the middle of that dirty face, his beautiful eyes shone like stars. He reached out a hand and poked my head. It was the sort of thing you’d do to a small child. He grinned playfully. “You fought, huh, boyo? Just looking at you, I can tell. Yeah?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah!” I was glad I was alive, I was glad I’d been born, I was glad I’d come back here.
I invited them both into the living room. The girl quickly devoured the cookie I offered her and then flopped down onto the sofa the way I used to, curled up, and fell asleep, as though she was completely exhausted.
“Oh!” Mustah found the 8 mm camera and turned the lens on me and the girl, cocking his head to one side as if wondering whether it still worked. And it did appear to be filming. I turned the camera on him then, and he grinned, embarrassed.
“The truth is, I have a favor to ask, Kyo.”
The small hours of the night. I was sitting on the floor across from Mustah, wiping the dirt off his skin, combing his hair. I also found a clean black shirt and put it on him. And some pants, although they were long enough to fit my lanky legs, so I had to roll them up twice for him. Gradually, he began to look the way I remembered him, and I saw that he was utterly unchanged, the same as he’d always been, like we’d parted only yesterday.
“A favor?” Somewhere in my heart, I was instinctively afraid. And then I swallowed that feeling down. “You can ask me anything. Go ahead!”
“My secret got out, y’know?”
“Oh! This girl?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s human, right?” I said in a quiet voice, turning my eyes on the sofa.
“You knew?”
“Well, it’s just when I offered her a cookie, she ate it, didn’t she? No matter which way you slice it, she’s a hungry human child.” Just like I used to be, eh? I added in my heart.
Mustah scratched his face, troubled. “I just sort of took her in. She was about to be killed, and there wasn’t a home she could go back to anymore. But I figured killer and victim were both humans, so that was that, and I was going to leave them be and fly off, y’know? But then, Kyo, I suddenly remembered you. Like, I sort of saw you in her.”
The girl rolled over in her sleep. Mustah hung his head, his face growing darker.
“But it’s totally not doable by myself. The only reason I managed to hide you and bring you up back then, Kyo, was because I had Yoji. I really get that now. They found out pretty quick, y’know?”
“Found out? Mustah…”
“Yeah.” There was resignation in his voice. “Ruirui’s guys came after us tonight.”
I said nothing but simply stared at him. Mustah looked straight into my eyes.
I vividly remembered the terror of that night, suddenly surrounded by more than ten Bamboo, male and female. And that face, Yoji bound by chains, left out in the morning light, burning to death, his charred face growing ever smaller. I shuddered. No one could ever completely escape them. The Bamboo government was relentless.
Mustah was… Then…
“Can I maybe ask you to take care of her, Kyo?” His voice was calm.
“You can.” I nodded immediately.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, Mustah!”
Until the girl was eighteen. Maybe four or five years. Could I keep going that long?
The only thing to do was to do it. I was still alive, after all. My flame had flickered to near nothing, but I’d fan it as best I could and keep going for a little while, albeit slowly. Until my final day.
After staring at my face for a while, Mustah grinned at me, relieved. His smile was the same as always, carefree, almost like cheerfulness itself. The bright innocence and enthusiasm of my Bamboo. I had yearned for him every day back then. My heart was full again. I pushed all these emotions back.
“The girl will be all right. But what will happen to you, Mustah? Will you…run?”
“Nah, I probably won’t be able to escape.”
“So then they’ll catch you. My voice was miserable again, like it had been bac
k then.
“They won’t catch me!”
“What?”
“If it’s between that and being burned at the stake by them, I’ll go on my own terms.”
“On your own terms. You can’t mean…”
“Yeah.” Mustah’s face grew quiet. “If it means them catching me and burning me alive like Yoji, then I’ll do it myself. I mean, like, I’ve always made decisions about myself on my own, y’know?”
“B-but—”
“A Bamboo’s life’s not forever, right? It ends at some point. So I don’t mind a bit if that some point is dawn today.”
“Mustah…” I swallowed hard and watched over his profile.
“Look, Kyo. The night’s almost over.” Mustah pointed straight at the eastern sky.
The pitch-black ocean was steadily shifting to indigo. A new day was trying to come over from the other side. For me, another day in what was left of my life, not much different from any other. For the girl, it was certainly a wonderful, unknown time. And for the Bamboo, a mere instant, a clipping from a long succession of decades.
The sun would come up!
Soon.
Dawn!
Mustah laughed finally, as if to bolster his courage. He didn’t look sad or like he was suffering. He really was the same old Mustah.
Unable to stand it, I started crying, like I had returned to being a boy of ten. I was happy he had come to see me in the end, but it was too awful that he was going to die. That I would see both Bamboo vanish from this world. They should have long outlived me, these Bamboo, eternally young men, so dazzling I almost hated it, and me, a wrinkled old man. There was no way this was right.
A cold palm stroked my head gently. In my ear, I heard, “I am seriously one lucky Bamboo to get to see you again in the end, my little Kyo!”
As he stood, Mustah was the beautiful, charming young man of days gone by. Endlessly enthusiastic, always playing. Sitting on the ground next to him, I was already old, old enough to be his father, his grandfather.
A Small Charred Face Page 11