The Flower Mat

by Shugoro Yamamoto

  Shouting, Teijiro turned around abruptly to face her. He stared at Ichi with bloodshot, glaring eyes, and took one large step forward. But at that very moment he covered his face with his hands and groaned, "Please go away. Quick, go away! Please go away!"

  Ichi rushed out of the room like a madwoman.

  She got ready, still wearing the borrowed kimono, and left Minojin House. The worried Mankichi asked her to wait for a while and see whether the storm would pass, or at least to have lunch. Since he was so visibly worried about flooding, Ichi herself grew nervous, and she left without saying goodbye.

  Since the wind was against her, she was soaked to the skin after walking only two or three hundred feet. The rice paddy around her was full of waves like a turbulent sea, and many of the young trees along the road had been blown down. Her straw coat and hat were constantly being ripped off, and torn branches and leaves flying through the air hit her cheeks, hands, and legs.

  While she was thinking about how her mother-in-law must be worrying, and whether Nobu was frightened, the recollection of Teijiro's large, bloodshot eyes, his strange words, and his frightening attitude went through her mind. She could not rid herself of the dread that she was being pursued. She could not forget his proud manner when he said that he must have the nature of a beast, and she could also picture his vision of rolling about naked on the mountain in a stormy, driving rain as vividly as if she were seeing it with her own eyes.

  Not only are his nerves shot—he really does have an eccentric personality. He makes much of satisfying the senses above all else, but perhaps the person who is dominated by the senses may be the person closest to the beast.

  When she reached Otagiri along the way, she found men in straw coats and hats running about with poles and mokko, the woven straw carts used to carry mud and sand.

  "Did they open the dam?" "We've got to destroy it!" She heard shouted snatches of such conversation, and there was wild excitement among the people putting mud into straw bags and carrying them to the assigned places.

  Frightened, Ichi began to run for her life against the rain and wind slapping against her.

  Part Four

  15

  FEW DETAILS of her experience that night remained in Ichi's memory. It was like the memory of her departure from the house in Ogaki; she was uncertain which event occurred first, and her impression of the experience was fragmentary.

  When she reached the house, Tatsuya was not there ; being worried about her, he had left about an hour earlier to look for her. Mozaemon and his wife were moving items of furniture which could not easily be transported to the second story of the storage building and were taking clothes and bedding by wagon to Takahata.

  "I think everything will probably turn out all right, but we've never had such stormy weather," Mozaemon stuttered. "If you have anything important, please give it to me, I'll transport everything in one trip. If you're not taking anything you can escape along the Karesawa. Well, I guess everything will turn out all right."

  As is always the case with people in an area alert to flood danger, he acted cautiously but was not very frightened.

  At Iso's insistence, Ichi got their things together and asked Mozaemon to carry out the very large items. For a moment she had a dim recollection of a very important object which she had to take with her whenever she fled in emergencies. What was it? "However you do it . . . but in absolute safety ..." The words rang vaguely in her mind, but she could not recollect what the object was.

  While she and Iso were packing, Mozaemon's wife came in and asked about getting milk for Nobu. Since their arrival here they had been getting milk for her in the neighborhood. Since Nobu would soon have her first birthday, Ichi was gradually weaning her to solid food, but the baby did better if she could get milk twice a day.

  "We should feed her well now, and I'll ask the wet nurse to squeeze out a little milk asa precaution," said Toshi, and she went out with Nobu in her arms.

  When the packing was finished, Mozaemon piled their belongings on the wagon and left, with Hei pushing. The room, made untidy by a lunch box containing rice balls and by the bundles into which they had put their personal belongings, was so dark they longed for a light.

  "Since our departure from Ogaki we've done nothing but pack and run," Iso said laughingly. "Hundreds of years ago when the Heishi family was made to run from Kyoto, they must have felt the same way, but I'm already getting a bit bored."

  Ichi did not know what answer to make and took advantage of the fact that the water was boiling to say that she would go and make tea.

  The broken oiled-paper shoji in the kitchen was rattling in the wind, with a noise like the buzzing of insects. By comparison with the roar of the violent storm it sounded so peaceful, like the hum of a bee.

  Just as she was thinking that the shoji sounded like a flute, Ichi remembered the small parcel which her husband had asked her to keep safe and which she had brought with her from Ogaki.

  Where did I put it? Ichi jumped up. Where is it?

  Almost everything had been carried out. It definitely was not among the bundles left behind. Where was it! She tried quickly to remember, but her efforts only confused her brain and made her dizzy.

  I don't remember it! ... If it's definitely here, it can only be in that bundle. There were the expensive things I brought with me from home when I got married. I kept them stored away in the humble Kugata house, but took them with me when we left Ogaki, thinking they might be useful. There was one extra bundle I took with me then. I've been so busy since my arrival in Ogasa, giving birth to a child and doing other things . . . did I forget it and put it into that bundle?

  She had a faint recollection of doing just that.

  Then I've got to get it back quickly. Something my husband so insistently begged me to care for shouldn't go out of my hands.

  Ichi quickly ran downstairs and rushed outside, pulling on the straw coat and hat. She heard her mother-in-law calling "Ichi!" but she simply shouted back that she would return soon and ran down the stone steps. Since Tatsuya would surely be back soon she felt she could leave her mother-in-law in his care. She also believed that although she knew only the general direction to Takahata she would be able to reach the men before they had traveled too far, since there was only one road and the men were dragging the wagon.

  It was no easy matter, however, to travel the unfamiliar road in the darkness and rain. She accidentally took the wrong turn and made a number of mistakes, and since there was no one around to assist her she lost a great deal of time. Finally she found the wagon just at the entrance to Takahata village.

  How impatient she was, when they had said that the village was only a step further, to force the wagon to stop and to search for the object she had in mind! How happy she was to finally find that particular bundle and that particular parcel in the bundle ! It was like a dream.

  Ichi immediately turned back toward home. Mozaemon shouted, "Let's go to Takahata together. They say the dam has broken at Tomieki." Paying no heed, Ichi fastened the parcel to her back and went back down the road.

  I've found the parcel my husband asked me to care for ! I have it with me now ! Nothing satisfied her more than this feeling. It brought back to her mind all the things she had forgotten. ... I woke up at midnight and couldn't get back to sleep, and went into my husband's bedroom, unable to suppress my longing. ... I found out then for the first time, with such an overwhelming physical pleasure, that Shinzo was really my husband. . . . That night when he spoke to me about this parcel, how soothed and sweet I felt when my husband came to me under my mosquito netting, wiped off my perspiration with a cold, wet towel, and fanned me. . . .

  Her most trivial feelings and delicate sensations on these occasions flashed through her mind as vividly as if she were experiencing them at that very moment. It was such a clear and immediate sensation that it almost aroused involuntary convulsions in her body.

  I loved my husband, and he loved me. . . . He answered my insist
ent questions that time by saying that my idea that husband and wife are two acting as one was not true and that a human being is always alone no matter how long he lives. I thought this a very cold idea, but it was simply that the sureness and depth of my husband's love were stronger than the vague idea that husband and wife act only as one. His saying entirely honestly that a human being is always alone no matter how long he lives is proof that my husband loved me as a human being. He really loved me !

  Ichi hurried along, half running and driven by an intoxicated joy, stopping every now and then to check that the parcel was still on her back. When she came to the turn she found it flooded knee-high. The wind was as strong as ever, the rain was heavy, and it was already dark. Ichi felt that if she hesitated she would miss her way, so she went right into the water.

  She was never able to describe the confusion which followed. She fell into the deep water up to her hips and was almost swept away. She frequently asked questions of people making their escape in the streets. She thought that the moon was peeping out once in a while from between the clouds, which were running at frightening speed, and yet the rain was still slapping her cheeks. She would never forget the heartbreaking voices of children calling their parents, the distraught voices of mothers looking for their children. She was told that there was no hope left for Morishima, and she made sure that everybody had escaped to Karesawa. She later found out that the dike of the Nagara River had broken faster than even the old men who were natives of this area had expected, and people said that a tremendous amount of dirty water had engulfed the villages downriver from Otagiri.

  When Ichi finally reached Karesawa, it was crowded with people and their belongings piled up on the dike. Even here she heard voices in the violent wind, shouting out sharply or sadly for parents, children, husbands, wives. Ichi added her voice to the tumult, shouting "Mother!" as she ran about in the crowd.

  Finally she heard her mother-in-law answer her, and with a feeling of indescribable excitement Ichi found her sitting under a big pine tree. Iso had placed a straw hat on her head and was seated with Nobu in her arms, not far from their bundles of personal belongings. Mozaemon's wife and two or three wives from her neighborhood were also there.

  "What happened to you?" Iso asked in an unexpectedly calm, quiet voice. She put the straw mat over Ichi. "It doesn't matter about me, but did you have to leave Nobu behind?"

  "Shinzo asked me to keep something for him." Ichi quickly took Nobu into her own arms. "It was something very important which I should have kept with me, but I carelessly put it into a bundle which went in the wagon. So I went after it, thinking that Tatsuya would soon be back and that it wouldn't take me long to find the wagon and then get back to the house."

  "I don't think Tatsuya's back yet. He's such an easygoing person," Iso said. Her voice revealed her pleasure at being together with her daughter-in-law. "He might have gone to Shimada and then been unable to get back. He's probably saying it's rather a big flood."

  She sounded exactly like Tatsuya. Ichi burst into laughter. Then she put her straw coat on Nobu and held the baby tightly. Turning to Mozaemon's wife, she told her that she had seen Mozaemon and Hei at Takahata and that the two would probably stay there.

  She was just about to open a lunch box for her mother-in-law when a strange shout and a stir came from the upper part of the dike, and she felt the ground sway. Until now the crowd around them had seemed to be settled down for the time being; people had talked to each other in loud voices and even laughed once in a while. But now all voices and movements stopped, and the sound of the roaring storm bent over the crowd and covered it with its horrifying clarity and determined pressure. Nothing overwhelmed the people more than this momentary silence.

  When the ground swayed, Ichi squeezed Nobu in her arms. The pressure must have been too strong, for Nobu began to cry. But the fear, horror, and despair were so overriding that Ichi could not think to loosen her arms even as she listened to the baby cry.

  16

  THE KARESAWA dike, a place of refuge in floods, ran through Takahata as far as Tsurana. The flood had poured over from Otagiri to the west, attacked the dike below Takahata, and broken it down about a half mile up-river from where Ichi and her family were sitting.

  Once broken, the dike crashed down from end to end, and the crowd of people who had taken refuge on it, and their belongings, were carried away by the water.

  Ichi discovered what was happening from the shouts of the people who were rushing toward this spot like a landslide. Half unconsciously she undid the hemp rope around the bundles and tied one end around her mother-in-law, the other end around herself.

  "Don't bother about me, take care of Nobu," Iso seemed to be saying.

  Ichi had put the crying Nobu on the ground. She could not see the baby in the darkness; the sight of Nobu kicking off the straw coat and crying loudly would remain in her memory with painful vividness.

  She could never remember later whether she fastened the rope around the pine, or whether it clung to the tree accidentally. It was not true that she weighed her mother-in-law and Nobu in the balance and decided to help her mother-in-law by abandoning Nobu. Yet it was true that she screamed, "Forgive me, Nobu! Forgive me, Nobu!" and that she constantly put her hand to the parcel on her back to make sure it was there.

  "You must help Nobu!" Iso seemed to be repeating. But when the ground fell and another pitch black ground surged up in its place, Ichi held her mother-in-law in her arms and clung to the pine tree.

  The rest was an incoherent nightmare. She was swallowed up in the water, someone's hand coiled fast around her neck, choking her. Something knocked her violently in the stomach, and her hair was pulled so hard it seemed it would be torn off. She felt her whole body being turned in circles, and many hands slapped her face.

  In this dark, chaotic world, before she lost consciousness, Ichi heard a voice singing very vividly,

  If the mountain burns down, The mother bird will run away. There is nothing more precious Than her own life.

  It was Nobu's voice.

  Ichi and her mother-in-law were narrowly saved when, still clinging to the pine tree by means of the rope, they were swept into the bushes in the village of Kajita. They regained consciousness three or four days later, thanks to the care of the villagers. They looked at each other, felt each other, and realized that they were still alive.

  Her mother-in-law stretched out her hand, stroked Ichi's hair, and wet her pillow with endless tears. Though she said not a word, Ichi understood what Iso's tears were saying. She herself did not cry, but took her mother-in-law's hand and stroked it, nodding to her quietly.

  I understand, mother. It must be true. Since Nobu has already become a little Buddha, I am sure she must be pleased about these things, she thought, stroking Iso's hand sympathetically. Strangely enough, she did not feel sad. But what she could hardly bear was the fact that when she dozed off she could hear that voice singing the cruel, hurtful phrase that the mother bird would run away when in danger, those scornful words that she would try to save herself even if she had to abandon her baby bird because there was nothing more precious than her own life. The fact that the voice was obviously Nobu's was unbearable. It couldn't be possible—the two sets of circumstances were completely different. That song had been sung by the ill-natured housewife at Minojin House; it was absolutely impossible that Nobu would think such a thing. It must all be a delusion. But immediately after reasoning along this line, she would again hear the song.

  The first thing Ichi did after she was able to get out of bed was to spread out and dry the contents of the parcel she had carried on her back. It contained five bound volumes, and each volume had a title. At first she tried to be cautious, so that the books would not be seen, but as they dried she began to read the titles, and then, giving in to temptation, their contents.

  There were five books of records, entitled "Events that Should be Criticized and Corrected," "Financial Summary," "The Party Cliques," "Con
spiracy Surrounding the Adoption of a Child as a Successor to the Ruler," and Seishukufu (List of Constellations). They contained an exact record of more than ten years of injustice and corruption among the major vassals surrounding Otaka, the chief vassal of the territory.

  What surprised Ichi most was the fact that her father's name clearly appeared in "The Party Cliques" and in "Conspiracy Surrounding the Adoption of a Child." The Seishukufu was written in Bennosuke's familiar hand, and therefore she did not find their father's name in it. But the name of Kasho Okumura appeared in every other document. In particular, he was named as one of the chief conspirators in the effort to circumvent the will of Lord Toda concerning the adoption of his successor.

  It all shocked Ichi beyond belief. Far more surprising, however, was her keen awareness of the effort put into this report and the miserable fruits of that effort. These five books were filled with the bleeding cries of people who had committed the crime of "revolution," people who had been slain on the streets, run down in the castle like her husband, felt the sword on their hakama like Kyunosuke, and seen themselves and their families thrown into prison.

  Not everything written was necessarily the truth; the truth was really in the hearts of those who had carried out the investigation. It had proved impossible to sully the purity of heart of those who had worked for proper reform of the clan government and for the happiness of the clan's law-abiding citizens, and this only proved that their action was the exact opposite of a "revolution."

  Ichi felt she should show these documents to everyone and petition for establishment of the truth about this matter. Then she realized that she might have an opportunity to see the lord himself, for the flower mat which Minojin House had presented to him was her entree to the honor of an audience. If she were lucky, she might be able to petition Lord Toda then.