Читать книгу Fish of the Seto Inland Sea - Ruri Pilgrim - Страница 15

In the spring, lots of snakes came out from between the stones of the walls surrounding the Shirais’ house. Haruko and Sachiko were collecting cast-off snake skins which were like lace. It was six months since they had returned to their grandparents’ house with their mother.

‘Good afternoon, girls,’ a tall black figure said. The two girls looked at each other and ran away from him to the back of the house.

‘Where is Hiden sama?’

Shige’s husband stopped cutting wood and, resting his hands on the handle of the axe, told them, ‘He was with Shu dansama in the garden.’ The two boys were target shooting with handmade bows and arrows. The girls ran to them.

‘Hiden sama, Shu-chan.’

Hideto ignored them. Shuichi copied everything that Hideto did.

‘Listen,’ Haruko said, panting, and Sachiko giggled. ‘The crow has come.’

‘Oh, no.’ Hideto stopped shooting and looked at the girls.

‘I have an idea,’ Haruko said. ‘Let’s all run away to the woods and hide. Are you coming, Hiden sama?’

If they were going to the woods, they needed Hideto to protect them from snakes, village boys and all sorts of dangers.

The crow was a nickname the children had given to Rev. Kondo because of his long black robe. He came every Wednesday afternoon from a nearby town to perform Christian services at the Shirais’. Everybody at home including the servants was expected to attend. Shobei had ordered an organ for Ayako from Tokyo and a former schoolmistress, came and played it.

Not only was the service boring for the children, but Rev. Kondo had an unnaturally long face. When his jaw was pulled down to sing a hymn, the girls and young maids in the back row had to endure excruciating hardship not to burst out laughing. On one occasion, one of the maids who sat right behind Haruko suddenly slapped her on the back and said, ‘Oh, no, Haruko ojosama,’ and went into fits of hysterical laughter. Everybody turned around and stared at Haruko. Altogether, the service was something they did not look forward to.

Later, the children were called by Tei-ichi.

‘Hideto.’ Tei-ichi addressed Hideto in a severe voice. ‘It was very rude of you to run away from the service when Rev. Kondo came all the way from the town to teach us lessons.’

‘Yes, otohsan.’

‘You should be old enough to know that. It was particularly naughty of you to have told the younger ones to run away with you.’

‘I am sorry.’

Haruko’s heart was beating fast, but Hideto did not make any excuses.

‘Go to the storehouse.’

The storehouse was at the end of the corridor and was built to withstand fire. It had mud walls which were one metre thick and no window. Two thick oak doors separated it from the main house. At the outbreak of fire, the doors would be sealed with mud. It was dark and cold inside.

To be locked up in the storehouse was the worst punishment.

Towards night, clanging a bunch of large keys, Kei came in, a lamp in hand.

‘Hideto?’ She held up the lamp and called, peering inside. ‘Come with me and we will apologise to otohsan.’

Kei and her son bowed to Tei-ichi. Kei said, ‘Now he knows he has done wrong. He says that he will not do it again. Please forgive him.’ She turned to Hideto. ‘Apologise to otohsan.’

After that Kei sat Hideto down and gave him his evening meal which she had kept for him.

In the summer, Haruko, Sachiko and Shuichi followed Hideto around. When he appeared, village bullies left them alone. In order to establish this position, Hideto had been involved in a few serious fights and had again been locked up in the storehouse by Tei-ichi.

Unlike the Miwas, the Shirais had evening meals together. Now that the older boys were away at university and school, Tei-ichi, Hideto and Shuichi sat at the top of the table. One evening, Tei-ichi looked down towards the end of the table and said, ‘I saw monkeys today up in a tree in the village.’

‘Monkeys?’ Kei asked. ‘I have never seen them so far away from the mountains.’

‘These monkeys I saw today were strange monkeys. They were wearing kimonos.’

‘I see,’ Kei said. ‘You had better tell them to go back to the mountains next time you see them.’

‘I will try. But I wonder if they will understand ... After all, they are monkeys.’

Haruko and Sachiko were red in the face and hunched their shoulders, making themselves as small as possible. Ayako looked at them amused. As Shobei wished, she was treated by Tei-ichi and Kei as though she was one of the children. She was more relaxed and happier.

‘When I was going on my rounds,’ Tei-ichi would say at another meal, ‘I saw two naked girls swimming in the river with the village children. They looked exactly like ours, but I don’t suppose we have such ill-behaved children in our family, do we? What do you think, Ayako?’

Everybody, even the servants, laughed, except Haruko and Sachiko.

Tomboys ought to be restrained, Tei-ichi believed, but he wanted Shuichi to be vigorous, even boisterous. He was the important charge trusted to him by the Miwas. As a doctor, he did not think that tuberculosis was hereditary, as it was generally believed, but suspected that there might be a constitutional tendency to the disease. Shuichi was tall for his age, but his neck was thin and he looked delicate. In Tei-ichi’s opinion, too many women fussed around him.

One evening, in early autumn, the sun was still high, but it was cooler and the smell of burning dry leaves was drifting in the air. The household was beginning to get busy. The bathtub had to be filled, washing had to be taken in and put away, and the evening meal had to be cooked. By the well, Shige was scaling a large fish. Shobei, who often went fishing early in the morning, had hung his catch at the Shirais’ gate on his way home before the household woke up.

‘Mata san,’ Kei was calling.

‘I sent him to town for shopping,’ Shige’s voice was heard.

‘Haruko nesan,’ Sachiko said, ‘I want a notebook.’ Nesan meant older sister.

‘I will give you one. It is nearly new.’

Sachiko indicated her dissatisfaction by being silent.

‘Let’s go to town,’ Sachiko insisted.

It took about an hour to walk to town and there was a tacit understanding that the children were not allowed to go on their own, especially in the evening.

‘Haruko nesan, let’s go to town,’ Sachiko repeated. Since they had moved to the Shirais’, Kei left social obligations more and more to Ayako and she was often out or away from home for a few days. Takeko had always been Kei’s favourite and hung around her grandmother. Sachiko was increasingly dependent on Haruko.

As the two girls started out, Shuichi appeared from somewhere and followed them.

‘Shu-chan, we will be back soon,’ Haruko tried. They wanted to return home before dark. They did not want to be saddled with a four-year-old boy.

‘I want to come.’ He looked at Haruko.

‘Where is Hiden sama?’ she said, but even before she asked, she knew Hideto had been away the whole afternoon with his friends. He must be climbing up a waterfall, or hanging on vines and jumping across a stream. He would no doubt be a general assaulting ‘Port Arthur’.

‘All right, you can come.’ Haruko stopped walking. She tidied Shuichi’s kimono and tied his sash tight. She held his hand and started off on the path between the rice paddies.

They saw Matabei coming back from shopping.

He asked, ‘Oh, Haruko ojosama and Sachiko ojosama, Shuichi dansama, as well? And where are you going?’

Sachiko said, ‘Just over there.’ She was quicker at tact than Haruko.

‘Over there?’ Matabei bent his head on one side and looked at the girls. ‘Don’t be too long, ojosama,’ he said.

‘Oh, no, we’ll be back very soon,’ Sachiko said.

They started to run. Matabei stood with a pole over his shoulder, shopping dangling from both ends. He looked after them for a minute, then went home, taking steps in rhythm with the movement of the pliable pole.

When they arrived in the little town with one narrow street, the sun had gone farther down and one side of the street was almost in darkness. At the back of a small shop which sold an assortment of stationery, sweets and haberdashery, there was a large persimmon tree laden with red fruit. The persimmons were shining in the evening sun.

The shopkeeper’s wife came out, wiping her hands on her apron, and opened her eyes wide in surprise.

‘Oh, Shuichi dansama, and Haruko ojosama and Sachiko ojosama, that was a long way to come.’

They did not know that they had to pay for the notebook but the woman did not worry about it either. She knew she would be paid later. When they said, ‘Thank you,’ and went out, she called after them, ‘Go home quickly. The autumn sun sinks very fast.’

‘I want to go home,’ Shuichi said. He must have been tired. It was getting dark rapidly and Haruko and Sachiko, too, were homesick. The worry of being scolded began to seem real as well.

‘I am hungry,’ Shuichi said. Haruko and Sachiko also felt hungry.

‘Let’s take the railway track,’ Sachiko suggested. The idea had crossed Haruko’s mind. If they took the railway track, it would take only about half an hour to get home, but they had been told by Tei-ichi many times that they must not walk on it. Even for Hideto, whose activities were hardly restricted at all, the railroad was an exception.

‘I want to go home,’ Shuichi repeated, holding Haruko’s hand. Haruko made up her mind.

They jumped from one sleeper to the next, and sang songs. There were lots of lovely pebbles to collect. They came to a railway bridge. They squatted and looked through the railings. Far below, the Kitaka river was heard, but the water was dark. Their village, Kitani, was along the river, a little upstream. It was the familiar river where they swam in summer when they thought no adults were around.

Home was not far away. They could get off the railway soon after the bridge and, within ten minutes, reach the big gate.

Haruko was relieved and astounded almost at the same time. She heard the tooting of a train and, as she looked, a light was approaching rapidly.

‘Sachiko san, sit here.’ Her voice was harsh in her anxiety. ‘And Shu-chan next to Sachiko san.’

The thought which flashed through Haruko’s mind was that Shuichi should not die. She had promised her father to look after him. How her mother would cry if she lost Shuichi.

She pushed herself against the railings and told Sachiko and Shuichi to do the same. She reached behind Sachiko’s back to hold Shuichi across his shoulders. The train might kill her. She hoped that Sachiko would be safe, though she might be killed as well. But Shuichi would be protected if there were two people shielding him. He had to be saved.

Now she prayed, ‘Please, God, I am sorry I did not listen to Rev. Kondo. Please help Shu chan for okahsan’s sake.’

It did not take long for the train to pass, thundering by.

‘Shu dansama, Haruko ojosama, Sachiko ojosama.’ They saw a lantern and heard Matabei’s voice. A tenant farmer had told Matabei that he had seen three children walking on the railway track.

Tei-ichi had heard from Matabei how Haruko was sitting with the other two, protecting them.

‘Haruko, were you not afraid yourself ?’ Tei-ichi asked. He was unexpectedly gentle.

‘Yes, but I thought it would be all right if Shu-chan was saved. Okahsan won’t cry.’ As far as she could remember, Haruko had not been afraid. She had been too busy trying to save Shuichi.

Tei-ichi was silent. Haruko was surprised that she was not locked up in the storehouse. Her grandfather’s eyes were a little moist. That surprised her as well. After sitting there for a while, Tei-ichi said, ‘Let’s go and have supper.’

By the time Haruko was ten years old, Shobei’s fears about Rinji had been confirmed. It was well known that Tetsu’s father was losing his business to another stonemason in the next village as he had taken to drinking. His son, Tetsu’s brother, had never been promising. The family debt was accumulating. People gossiped that his daughter’s marriage into a rich family had turned the stonemason’s head.

‘Perhaps we should divorce her,’ Shobei muttered in front of his wife. ‘She has no children. We could send her home. We can give her some money ...’

It was the duty of a bride to bear children for the family she married into. The Miwas had a right to divorce Tetsu. It occurred to Shobei that the Chinese characters for ‘barren woman’ were ‘stone’ and ‘woman’, but his sense of decency restrained him from making a poor joke in front of his wife.

‘To send Tetsu home might be a solution,’ his wife said, ‘but you will not be popular. Even if you gave her money, her relatives would bear a grudge against you, and they are not a small family. It will not be good for Shuichi’s future.’

That was true. The little boy would need as much sympathy and help as possible as he grew up. In this part of the country, where tangerines grew in the winter sun, everything was easy-going, and a peasants’ uprising was unlikely. But society was changing. The Socialist Party had been launched and the People’s Newspaper was in circulation. There were strikes in the factories and mines. Shobei was afraid that when Shuichi grew up, the life of a landowner would not be as easy as it had been.

It was not just the material side of life that was under threat. Although Shobei himself was not directly involved in politics, he was recognised as one of the most powerful men in the area. Officials came from the local government to ask his opinion. Candidates for any government office were said to have to get his unofficial approval as the first step. For a person in such a position, a scandal about a member of his household being treated unkindly had to be avoided.

Shobei said to his wife, ‘You are thoughtful. If you have a suggestion, say it.’ It was the first time he had asked his wife’s opinion on a weighty matter since they had married a long time ago.

‘I think you should pay Tetsu’s father’s debt. It could not be too large for you. If the problem is drinking, the chances are that he will not be able to go back to his business. Pension him off. Then, make Haruko the rightful successor to Rinji san. No one will say you are cruel.’

Shobei folded his arms. He was not reflecting on what his wife had just said. He was simply impressed.

The duty of telling Haruko about the adoption fell on Tei-ichi.

‘You know your Rinji ojisan and Tetsu obasan, don’t you?’ Tei-ichi began.

Haruko had never seen her uncle except at formal family gatherings. The furtiveness of his demeanour as he talked to elderly relatives was plain even to the children. Beside Shintaro he had always been an undistinguished son and a mediocre brother. For the children, he had never been a respected uncle nor a friend.

The relationship between his wife and the children was even more vague. With the sensitivity of the young, they felt she was not quite one of them. Haruko once heard grandmother Miwa say to Tetsu, ‘Tetsu san, wear your kimono a little longer. The mistress of the Miwa branch family has to look graceful.’

Haruko noticed that Tetsu wore her kimono as Shige and Kiyo did, showing her ankles, while Miwa obahsama and Ayako wore theirs long so that the hem almost touched the floor. Only the white toes of their tabi were seen peeping in and out as they walked.

Interpreting Haruko’s silence as expectancy of what was coming, Tei-ichi pressed on.

‘As you know very well, Rinji ojisan and Tetsu obasan do not have children, and they want someone to succeed them. Miwa ojisama thought that you would be a very good person to become their child and carry on their name.’

Haruko was bewildered and stared at Tei-ichi. She did not understand.

In spite of himself, Tei-ichi felt uneasy as his granddaughter gazed at him.

Haruko did not look as though she was going to be tall and slender like Ayako. She would be more like Kei, dainty and lively, but she had inherited her mother’s eyes. They were large and liquid, and the fold of her eyelid was not common among the people around them.

He looked away. He felt that he was unable to explain to a ten-year-old why it was advantageous for the family to inherit Rinji’s property. It was too pragmatic for the innocent.

‘It will be to Shuichi’s advantage in the future,’ he said, and felt the remark struck a chord.

Haruko did not understand why becoming Rinji’s child would help Shuichi, but the children were not in the habit of asking questions of grown-ups.

‘Of course, your Rinji ojisan’s house is not far away, and you don’t have to stay there all the time. Even your surname is not going to change. It is just that when you grow up, you will succeed him.’

‘Do I have to call them otohsan and okahsan?’ Haruko asked anxiously.

‘No, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to.’

She had not grasped the full implications and Tei-ichi’s tone was reassuring. She could do nothing but trust her grandfather.

‘For Shu-chan’s sake, I will do it.’

‘Thank you,’ Tei-ichi said solemnly.

As Haruko came out of her grandfather’s study, she saw Ayako sitting on the verandah. The sun was shining on her thick coiled hair, making it look deep purple. She was bending over a cloth spread on her lap and peeling a persimmon. More fruit lay in a shallow bamboo basket placed near her. Sachiko and Shuichi were sitting on either side of her. Sachiko moved closer to her mother and made a place for Haruko on the same zabuton.

Ayako had a kitchen knife in her right hand and skilfully turned round and round a persimmon held in her left hand. An orange ribbon grew longer and longer and hung from her hand. When the fruit was peeled, she cut it into four pieces, put them on a plate and stuck a toothpick into each one.

As she handed the plate around, a waft of clean gourd water scent that Kei made for the family as a lotion passed over the children.

Ayako picked up the last piece left on the plate and ate it herself.

‘Very sweet,’ she said smiling at the children. She picked up the peel from her lap and put it in the basket. Then she bent down again to peel another fruit.

‘M-m-m,’ Shuichi uttered. Ayako put down the persimmon she was holding and held out her palm to let Shuichi spit out a stone. She wiped her hand with the cloth and picked up the fruit again.

Haruko suddenly thought that it was unfair that she was to be taken away from her family while the other children could live peacefully in such a loving atmosphere. Why did she alone have to go to her uncle’s house when she hardly knew him?

‘I have to go and live with Rinji ojisan,’ she said, and unexpectedly tears started to roll down her cheeks. They were warm and salty. Ayako looked up.

Sachiko said, ‘Why?’ and started to cry herself. ‘Oh, no, I don’t want you to go away,’ she wailed.

‘I don’t want you to go away, either,’ Shuichi cried, too.

Ayako put down the knife and said, ‘Look, you don’t have to go, if you don’t want to. Don’t cry,’ and put her arms around the three children, holding them tight. ‘There is nothing sad about it. It is to keep our family together. There is nothing to worry about at all. God will be with us always.’

Desperation surged through Haruko. She felt the helplessness of her mother without realising it. Still in his mother’s arms, Shuichi stroked Haruko’s hand. She smiled at him. She had to go to Rinji ojisan’s house. She would go because that would help Shuichi.

In Rinji’s house, there were no thick pillars blackened by time and polished by generations of hands like the Miwas’ main house or the Shirais’. Each room was elaborately decorated but small.

‘Come this way,’ Rinji said, and took Haruko to a tiny room built into the garden. ‘Use this as your own. See, you have your own room. Pleased?’ and he left her.

She sat on the tatami floor. Takeko would not be able to stay here, she thought, as she imagined how dark and quiet it would be at night. She untied the furoshiki she had brought with her and, since there was no desk, spread her school books in front of her. Crouching, she opened them.

As it was getting dark and cold, Tetsu came.

‘We will eat now,’ she said, and led the way to the kitchen. A simple meal of rice, miso soup and cooked beans was ready for two. A bowl of pickles was in the centre of the table. Tetsu ate without speaking. She picked up a piece of pickle with her chopsticks and noisily crunched it. Kei and Ayako would certainly frown. It was good manners to take a piece from the bowl into your own plate and eat it. When Tetsu finished eating, she poured tea into her rice bowl. At the Shirais’, tea was served in a tea cup.

‘I will show you how to wash up,’ Tetsu said. Haruko had never done any washing up and she noticed that Rinji and Tetsu did not have maids. Getting water from the well was not easy, but she felt grown up. When the washing up was done, Tetsu followed Haruko to her room and showed her where the futons were kept. Obviously Haruko was not going to be given a lamp and there was nothing to do but to go to bed.

She wondered how Sachiko was. Neither of them had ever slept alone. Sachiko had a habit of wetting her bed, and she often crawled into Haruko’s bed early in the morning. When Ayako was away and the wind woke them up, all three children slept huddled under one cover. What would Sachiko do? When Shuichi woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares, would Kei be able to hear him scream and sob?

The sliding door was opened and a man’s voice said, ‘You have to get up.’ Haruko jumped out of bed. At the Shirais’, Kiyo softly called them from outside before she came into the room. Each child had a shallow box into which Ayako or Kei would put the clothes they needed for the day. Haruko found that she had gone to bed without changing. She had to go to school in a wrinkled kimono. It was grey and cold. She shivered.

‘From today, you are a child of this family,’ Rinji said. ‘You have to learn lots of things. To get up early is the first important thing. One shouldn’t be idle. Now, the first duty of the day is to clean the verandah.’

‘Children have to be disciplined,’ he had told Tetsu. ‘The worst thing that can happen to a child is to be spoilt.’ He was determined to educate Haruko to be an obedient and hard-working woman capable of managing a house.

Tetsu came out with a bucket of water and a floor cloth and left them in front of Haruko without speaking.

‘I will show you how to clean the floor,’ Rinji said. In front of the astonished Haruko, he knelt down on the floor with his knees apart and his heels together. Supporting himself on his spread-out left hand, he moved the cloth with his right hand from left to right and then, having turned the cloth upside down, wiped the boards this time right to left. He continued this way gradually going backwards. His bottom swayed rhythmically with the motion and Haruko thought it was most undignified. It was comical, too. It was something that she certainly had to tell Sachiko. Ayako would smile and Kei would laugh, Haruko was sure.

In what period of his life had Rinji taken up cleaning the floor, Haruko wondered. She had never seen a man doing housework. At the Shirais’ even Matabei, who did almost everything else, was not expected to clean inside the house.

She received the cloth from Rinji and tried to wash and wring it as he did. The water was icy, and she thought of Tetsu’s large hands. When the cloth was soaked with water, it was too voluminous for the child’s hands to wring it. It was heavy and dripping.

‘Watch it!’ Rinji shouted. ‘Water will mark the floor. Wring it tight. Tighter. Tighter. I will teach you how to sweep the rooms after breakfast.’

Haruko was alarmed. ‘I must go to school,’ she said. Already it was getting late.

‘You don’t have to go to school today,’ Rinji told her. ‘We have more important things for a girl to do.’

Haruko had to dust the sliding screens. She had to polish shelves and sweep the tatami floor. All morning, the house was quiet except for the noise Haruko was making.

Rinji had very few visitors. At the Shirais’, there were always lots of people coming and going. First of all there were patients. Then there were relatives. Merchants called. The most popular merchant among the children was a man from the cake shop in town who came a couple of times a week. He brought a shallow box slung round his neck. The box was neatly sectioned and in each little square, there was a sample of an exquisite cake. They were mostly rice or bean-based and not only tasty but had lovely colours and shapes. Their names were artistic, too, ‘Spring Rain’, ‘Shower of Petals’, ‘Autumn Mist’, ‘Chrysanthemum in the Evening Sun’, ‘Dawn’, and many more. The samples of cake changed according to the season. The cake man would be given a cup of tea while Kei was deciding what to order. The children often sat around hoping that their grandmother’s choice would fall on their favourites.

The tofu man called every day as Tei-ichi had a piece for dinner with ginger and spring onions. Kei made a special citron and soya sauce for that dish. The man carried a pole across his shoulders with a tub hung from either end. He had a little brass trumpet that he would let the children blow if Tei-ichi was not looking. In summer, a goldfish man would call and, from her brocade purse, Ayako would give the children money.

Once a year in the autumn, a man came from Kyoto with a large bundle on his back. Even if it was a chilly day, he wiped his bald head with a folded handkerchief when he put down his load in the living room.

‘Are you all well? Dannasama and young dannasama as well?’ he would inquire politely. He brought silk. It was not the sort of material which Kei bought for daily kimonos; the silk was for special occasions such as New Year’s Day when they had to dress up. The kimono dealer held the end of rolled material and, with a flip of his arm, spread lengths of cloth one after another across the tatami floor. Kei and Ayako would be deep in consultation, discussing and examining each piece.

‘I thought this would particularly suit young Miwa okusama,’ the man would say to Ayako. To Kei, he said, ‘Since you have given me such long patronage, I will make it as cheap as possible. If you just stand, please, allow me.’ He draped a long and narrow cloth over Kei’s shoulder.

‘What do you think, young Miwa okusama?’

Then they began to discuss the linings to go with the kimono material.

Kei and Ayako usually bought several pieces of material for the whole family, and, finally, presents for the servants were put aside as well.

Only the tofu man came to Rinji’s house.

On the fourth day after Haruko arrived at Rinji’s, Matabei came early in the morning bringing some fish and vegetables as presents.

That evening, Haruko was washing rice by the well at the back of the house. She heard a whisper, ‘Haruko nesan.’ At first she thought it was her imagination. She was thinking of Sachiko and home. It was icy cold. She felt miserable and homesick.

‘Haruko nesan.’ It was Sachiko calling her from behind the hedge.

‘Quick!’ Sachiko said. ‘I came to get you. Let’s go home!’

Involuntarily, Haruko looked around. ‘I’ll get my school things.’ She tiptoed into her room and got all her books and pencils. She left her clothes.

Matabei had heard from the tofu man of Haruko’s plight and, having been there himself, told Kei and Ayako.

‘Poor Haruko ojosama! Please being her home. She is too young and the dansama of the branch family does not know how to treat children. After all, he has no experience with them.’

Kei and Ayako were already concerned as Sachiko had been telling them of Haruko’s absence from school.

While the grown-ups were discussing how to deal with the situation, Sachiko heard them and decided to rescue her sister.

The two girls hurried out of the gate. Once outside, they ran. Evening stars were beginning to appear in the pale blue sky. After a while they were out of breath and stopped. Their cheeks were red but their hands were cold.

‘Haruko nesan,’ Sachiko said. Haruko took Sachiko’s hand and they walked home.

That night, Matabei carried a lantern and hurried back along the same path. He had two letters from Tei-ichi to deliver, one, a letter of explanation to Shobei, and the other, a letter of apology to Rinji.