Читать книгу Fish of the Seto Inland Sea - Ruri Pilgrim - Страница 17

The drama was soon forgotten in the excitement of the approaching New Year’s celebration and Haruko’s uncle Yasuharu’s home-coming for a holiday from Tokyo.

Tei-ichi was just as pleased as the others to see his son but, to maintain his dignity, he made himself look specially glum on the day of Yasuharu’s arrival. Even so, he could not keep himself away from the rest of the household.

‘Kei.’ He came out from the consulting room. ‘Yasu might like a hot bath after a long journey.’

‘Yes,’ Kei replied. ‘Mata san has it ready.’

‘Hum! One does not want to make a fuss, but I thought it was essential.’

After ten minutes, he came out again.

‘Kei, what are we having tonight? He is coming home just for a holiday. You don’t have to make anything special. Get the front path swept, will you? One’s front garden always has to be clean whether Yasu comes home or not.’

In the afternoon, Matabei brought round a cart. The children crowded around it and walked to the station with him. When Yasuharu appeared at the ticket barrier with a porter behind him, the children shrieked, ‘Yasu ojisama!’ The station master came out from his office to greet him. Passengers who got down from the same train bowed and wished him a good holiday before they parted.

A rickshaw was ready for Yasuharu. Shuichi sat on the cart with the luggage and the rest of the children sometimes ran in front, sometimes dragged behind, chatting and laughing.

The front gate of the Shirais’ was wide open. Yasuharu was to enter the house from the formal open porch and not through the back entrance. The eldest son was the next important person to Tei-ichi in the family and Kei made sure that all the formalities were observed. The members of the household gathered at the front porch to welcome him home. Tei-ichi stayed in his study.

When Yasuharu went in to greet his father, Tei-ichi said, ‘Oh, is it you?’ and, as though he had just remembered that his son was coming home, turned round from his open book. ‘How are you? You look well.’

‘Thank you, otohsan. I am very well. I am glad you are keeping well, too.’

After formal exchanges, Tei-ichi released Yasuharu saying, ‘You must be tired after your long journey. I understand there is a bath ready for you. Relax and let’s hear your news later.’

Yasuharu always brought back lots of presents. For his nieces, there were little silk pouches. Takeko was given a pair of red patent leather zori, a pair of sandals.

‘Let’s see.’ Kei and Ayako admired them. As may be expected, anything you buy in Tokyo is very well made.’ Both women turned the zori and examined them.

‘Isn’t it a lovely colour, okahsan,’ Ayako said to Kei, and eventually to Takeko, ‘Put them away carefully. You can wear them on New Year’s Day when we go and see Miwa oji-isama and obahsama,’ and the sandals were given back to Takeko.

They admired Shuichi’s kaleidoscope, an English dictionary for Hideto, ribbons and hair ornaments and pencil cases, water pistols and toy boats. ‘How nice!’ the women exclaimed. He would bring appropriate presents for Kei and Ayako and the servants.

When everybody was happy, Yasuharu said, ‘Haruko, I hear you had quite an adventure. This is specially for a brave girl,’ and he gave her a book. It was thin but about twenty centimetres wide and three times as long. On a glossy green cover, three bears in European clothes were dancing together. The title was written across the cover but Haruko could not read it.

Inside there were more beautiful illustrations of three bears and a girl. She had blue eyes, and golden hair like the Russian soldier whom Haruko had seen on the beach.

The next day, another family member arrived. Tei-ichi’s younger brother, Haruko’s great-uncle, had gone to a Buddhist temple as a novice when he was a little boy. It was the traditional way for a boy of intelligence to be educated. He had become a priest of high position. With a shaven head and wearing a simple black robe, the venerable man would visit his old home to pray for the ancestral spirits. He was always accompanied by a young novice who looked after him.

Villagers came to pay their respects to him one after another, then they went round to the back of the house and asked for his bath water. No one knew how it had started but the belief was that if one drank this noble priest’s bath water, it would purify the mind and keep the body healthy.

Tei-ichi told them off whenever he found out.

‘Holy Man? Don’t be ridiculous. I have told you before. What a disgusting idea. Matabei, empty the bath tub immediately. Drinking bath water, indeed. You will all die of cholera one day.’

‘They still come for your uncle’s bath water,’ Kei said to Yasuharu. ‘Country folk are so superstitious.’

Yasuharu laughed indulgently. He knew that his mother was also full of odd ideas.

‘Do you remember the Takanos of Miura village?’ The talk of superstition gave Kei the chance she had been waiting for. ‘Their son Fusataro san was at school with you.’

‘Ah, Fusatan.’ Yasuharu involuntarily resorted to the childhood nickname. ‘A very nice guy. He went to Waseda University. I met him in Tokyo by chance some time ago, and we had a meal together.’

‘He is the representative of his village now and comes often to see otohsan. Both of them are very keen on the problem of diet and sanitation.’

‘Oh, that’s good. I want to go and see him one day.’

As the conversation was going in the direction that she wanted, Kei was encouraged.

‘You know Fusataro san has a younger sister.’

Yasuharu said he did not remember, and now realised what was coming.

‘Okahsan,’ he said, ‘I am not against marriage. On the contrary, I know it is important for me to marry.’

He then told Kei that his world was no longer confined to Kitani village or to the prefecture. For that matter, his horizon was beyond Japan.

‘The Ministry of Education has set up a scholarship for medical researchers to go to Germany and study. I haven’t talked to otohsan, yet, but I am thinking of applying for it in a few years’ time. I will get his consent when I know better what I am doing. You see, okahsan, there are things that I want to achieve before I am saddled with responsibilities.’

The news that Yasuharu planned to go abroad did not shock Kei unduly because, in her mind, the distance between Kitani village and Germany was not much further than that between Kitani village and Tokyo. She accepted his view on marriage calmly, and embraced his ambition. Yasuharu told her that he wanted to specialise in ophthalmology and the study of trachoma.

‘Oh, Yasuharu san.’ She was pleased. ‘How marvellous! Go to Germany or anywhere and study as much and as long as you need. When you come home, you can cure Yone san, Katsu’s okahsan, Ken san of the Matsudos and ... oh, they will be so relieved.’

‘Okahsan, it will be a long time before anyone can cure Yone san and everybody else,’ Yasuharu told her in haste. He was horrified to imagine that when he came home next time, there would be a queue of villagers and their friends and relatives waiting for him to cure their trachoma.

‘It does not matter. I will be a good mother for the doctor of trachoma and wait until the time comes.’

‘Can I be a doctor, too?’ Haruko suddenly said from the corner of the room. As she had been quietly looking at her new book, both Kei and Yasuharu had forgotten that she was there. Some of her schoolfriends had eyes caked with mucus. Although she did not know what they were suffering from, the Miwa children were warned by Kei not to hold these friends’ hands.

‘I want to be a doctor and cure people,’ she said. Her grandfather wore a white apron to see his patients, but her uncle wore a smart white coat when he helped grandfather. She had thought that she would become a teacher, but being a doctor seemed more interesting and exciting.

Kei looked at Haruko affectionately and smiled. ‘Oh, what an idea! Girls cannot be doctors. It’s a man’s job. But you will be a lovely bride one day like your okahsan, won’t you?’

It seemed the new year opened a new page for the Shirai family. On the seventh of January, it was the custom to have rice gruel with seven kinds of herbs for breakfast. In the mountain areas, people often had to look for tiny shoots under the snow. On the fifteenth, to mark the end of the New Year’s celebration, they had rice gruel with red beans. The battledore and shuttlecock that girls played, and the kites that boys flew, were all put away.

As if he had been waiting for the holiday season to end, Tei-ichi announced, ‘Kei, I will stand as candidate to be a member of the Prefectural Assembly.’

Kei received the news calmly. For men, the world was changing and progressing, but her role remained the same. She accepted and gave support as always.

She had heard Tei-ichi say many times that hygiene was more important than medicine – ‘The way they live, it is a miracle they don’t get ill’ – and he had been excited about a plan for a health-care centre.

She had never thought she would be a politician’s wife, but she would do her best. Kei suspected that there was another reason for Tei-ichi’s decision to direct his efforts in a different direction. Whenever Yasuharu came home, there were villagers who came in with sheepish grins and asked, ‘Eh, I wonder if the young Dr Yasuharu is at home?’ Tei-ichi would say with a wry smile, ‘Cunning rascals. Drinking bath water and wanting a new doctor.’ Although Kei’s interpretation was simpler, Tei-ichi felt that the time had come for a new generation of doctors with knowledge and technology. Experience alone was no longer enough to gain people’s confidence. He had suspected this for a long time, perhaps since Shintaro came home from university.

Kei calculated that with his reputation and the respect he had among people, he would succeed in being elected. As though she had planned it all along, she said, ‘It is very good timing.’

Their second son had been adopted by a landowner’s family in a nearby village. Their third son, Masakazu, Kei said, would not need any more education.

‘Why?’ Tei-ichi wondered why she was telling him about their sons and also why there would be no more expense for Masakazu’s education. Their third son had always been a worry for Tei-ichi. Shobei had said that the Shirai boys were all bright but he had overlooked Masakazu. He was a kind, cheerful boy but would not be able to go to university without great expense for special tutoring, and even that might not achieve the aim.

Kei argued, ‘Any more education for him would be a waste of money.’

Tei-ichi had always thought of Masakazu as a failure. Many times he had sat with the boy till late at night trying to teach him things he could not grasp. The more annoyed and angry Tei-ichi became, the more confused the boy became until he could not answer questions that even Haruko was able to get right. But Tei-ichi was nevertheless determined to go on trying harder to make him like his other sons.

‘He is not good at school, but that does not mean he is not worthy,’ Kei was saying. ‘He is kind and honest. The post master in town promised to employ him if you agree. He can work from this spring when he finishes school. He will be able to have a contented and respectable life.’

Although Kei did not name him, Rinji was in her mind.

As for Hideto, Kei said, he was a bright boy. If it was difficult to send him to university, he could go to military college or naval college. They were free.

‘It does not matter if we have to sell our land now,’ she went on. ‘Kitani village is too small for our children. They should go out, and get their places in the wider world. Your ancestors would be proud of you if you spend what they passed on to you for the sake of the people around here.’

‘Oho!’ Tei-ichi stared at his wife. If Haruko had been present, she would have understood that Yasuharu’s ambition had inspired Kei. ‘You have grown to be a great woman.’ Tei-ichi disguised his surprise by teasing.

‘Oh, no,’ Kei replied modestly. ‘I am just repeating something Yasuharu san told me the other day.’

Tei-ichi Shirai’s campaign had hardly any opposition, particularly after Shobei offered his wholehearted support. Shobei’s trust in the Shirais as a mainstay for his family, expressed before his son’s marriage, had been fulfilled.

Tei-ichi was busier and within a few years had risen to the position of Chairman of the Assembly.

In the spring, Masakazu started to work at the post office. Kei bought him the first bicycle in the village. On the morning of his first day, she lit new candles in the recess where the ancestral name tablets were placed. She made Masakazu sit by her and both of them prayed.

‘I thanked our ancestors that you have grown up to be a fine man,’ she said. ‘I am sure they are very proud of you.’ She handed him his lunch box. She stood at the gate and watched him ride away until he waved at her and turned a corner.

The villagers were getting used to hearing the bell of the bicycle through the early morning mist, and a cheerful ‘Good morning.’ ‘Kuma san, if you want to write to your son again, I’ll do it for you. Come to the post office.’ ‘Thank you very much, Masakazu dansama. I’ll come to see you tomorrow, if it’s all right with you.’ Watching his disappearing back, they would say, ‘The young dansama of the Shirais are all hard-working and well educated.’ Kei’s plan was successful.

‘It is better to be a chicken’s head than an ox’s tail.’ Kei was breezy when talking to Ayako about her younger brother. ‘He is respected now and appreciated. He would have been miserable among scholars.’

‘What does that mean, obahsama?’ Haruko asked, laughing. ‘Why is he a chicken’s head?’

Kei was serious. ‘It means, it is much better to know one’s place than to hang at the bottom of more able people and be undistinguished. Remember it. It is an important lesson in life.’

As for Hideto, Kei was confident and hardly worried about her youngest son. He was now a boarder at a school in town. Although he was mischievous, he was popular among his friends. Kei secretly believed that he had the potential to become a great man. He would be a hero among heroes, she thought. The school tolerated most of his adventures and he was given only minor punishments.

It was mere boyish misbehaviour. On winter evenings, when the boys were hungry, the vendors came around calling, ‘Baked sweet potatoes! Baked sweet potatoes!’, or, ‘Buckwheat noodles. Hot noodles!’, over the school walls. The vendors had earthen barrels with burning charcoal on a cart, and the sweet potatoes were hooked and baked inside. It was always Hideto who had to go and buy them for everyone, as he was the best able to climb up on the high wall of the boarding house.

One night, as Hideto carried a hot newspaper bag and jumped down into the school premises, a teacher was waiting for him. He was also involved in many fights, mostly defending weak boys from bullies. All the incidents were duly reported to his parents and they both ignored them.

‘He has already been punished at school,’ Tei-ichi would say. ‘Leave him. If he is still like that when he is eighteen, then, I will disown him.’ Kei secretly loved these stories which she thought gallant and fun. But when he participated in a strike against the school authorities, the matter could not be left unattended. It was an incident concerning a young history teacher. He was enthusiastic about democracy and freedom and excited the boys with an idealism bordering on anti-imperialism and anti-militarism.

This was at a time when twelve people had been sentenced to death just for being accused of planning the assassination of the Emperor. Socialism was a dangerous word. The Military Police were increasing their influence. Although Hideto was not a senior pupil or the main agitator, taking part in the strike was judged to be a grave offence. Tei-ichi was not only Chairman of the Assembly but also by then the head of the parents’ association of the school. The school hesitated to publicise his son’s misconduct. If it was known that Hideto was treated generously because he was Dr Shirai’s son, Tei-ichi’s name would be tarnished. On the other hand, if Hideto was either suspended or expelled from school, it would affect his future.

Kei visited the headmaster, the deputy headmaster, the class teacher, and all the other teachers, even the kendo instructor, and apologised to each one. She was the wife of the Chairman of the Prefectural Assembly and a doctor who was widely known and respected. Her family was also closely connected with the Miwas, but she humbly and politely asked everybody to forgive him as in future he would be strictly supervised. All the teachers sympathised with Kei. She was admired as ‘a very accomplished lady’.

‘What has he done?’ Haruko asked Kei.

‘Boys get passionate about new ideas. That is the way they learn. Only those who are stupid never get into trouble when they are young, but only stupid ones go on being trouble after they grow up,’ Kei said.

‘What trouble, obahsama?’

‘Oh, politics. Something that we women do not have to understand.’

And it was not long before Hideto proved himself worthy of his mother’s efforts.

The summer holiday came and Yasuharu returned home. He brought with him a friend who was a paediatrician. The children were told to call him Dr Komoto but, in spite of the formal address, he was soon joining in with wrestling, games and other lively activities. Haruko’s English alphabet progressed from ‘apple’ to ‘pen’ with Dr Komoto’s help.

The days passed, happy and uneventful, until the day that Yasuharu, Dr Komoto, Hideto and Shuichi decided to go sea fishing. Early in the morning, they left, both Yasuharu and Dr Komoto in yukata, cotton kimono, and Hideto and Shuichi in cotton shorts, all wearing straw hats. The day promised to be fine. They carried rice balls that Shige had made. The rice balls had cooked seaweed inside instead of the usual pickled plums. Pickled plums prevented the rice from going sour but, if taken fishing, Shige insisted, there would not be any catch.

‘Oh? That won’t do, Shige san. Thank you,’ Dr Komoto said politely. Yasuharu just opened his mouth and laughed noiselessly.

At the shore, a fisherman was waiting for them with a small boat. He said, ‘It is windy further offshore. Come home early before the weather changes.’ But the sky was deep blue and the temperature was rising. The sun was already strong. They got into the boat and the fisherman pushed it out into the water.

‘Shu-chan, you must get as tanned and strong as Hideto,’ Yasuharu said. Yasuharu, Dr Komoto and Hideto rowed the boat in turn until they were a long way from the shore. They were all happily fishing when Dr Komoto said, ‘Oh?’ and looked up at the sky.

The wind was getting cool and he thought he felt a raindrop on his face. But he did not pay further attention as Yasuharu and Hideto did not seem to be worried. They were brought up in the area, he thought, they should know. But although they had grown up near the sea, neither Yasuharu nor Hideto had much knowledge or experience of boats. Yasuharu looked up at the sky as large drops of rain started to come down on them.

‘It will pass,’ he said, and asked Shuichi if he was cold. Shuichi was catching the rain water running down his cheeks by sticking out a lower lip. He shook his head. The boat began to sway and he was a little afraid but he trusted his uncles and was quietly holding on to the side of the boat.

As the wind rose, wave after wave crashed into the small boat.

‘Hideto, scoop up the water in the boat with your hat,’ Yasuharu said and Dr Komoto and Hideto started to bail out water.

‘Shu-chan, you help us, too,’ Hideto said and Shuichi joined them. The boat was lifted up by a big wave and crashed down and reeled round. Despite all their efforts, they were soon ankle-deep in water.

‘Shu-chan, come here,’ Yasuharu said, and pulled him to his side.

‘Which way is the wind coming from?’ Dr Komoto said. In the middle of the storm, Hideto thought the question was silly and inconsequential, but then it occurred to him that Dr Komoto might be trying to compose himself.

‘It seems to be blowing us along the shore,’ he answered.

At home, the three girls were sitting around Kei sewing dolls’ clothes. Ayako was not at home, having gone to a relative’s wedding party. The pieces of cloth the girls were given were mostly dark-coloured cotton with stripes. Silk remnants were kept to make cushions for guests or sleeveless tops, but Kei gave them each a small piece of brightly coloured, patterned silk. The material was carefully smoothed with a flat-iron. Kei had taken it out from a chest of drawers with large iron handles.

As they all bent down around Kei’s sewing box, Tei-ichi said from the verandah, ‘Has Yasu not come home yet?’

‘No, he has not come home,’ Kei said.

Tei-ichi’s voice was heard calling Matabei. The girls had not noticed but the raindrops were causing ripples on the surface of the pond. Plantain leaves swayed and rustled. Kei said, ‘You stay here,’ to the girls and hurried to join Tei-ichi.

Matabei ran out barefoot into the rain towards the sea wearing a waterproof cape.

‘Yasuharu is with them. They will be all right,’ Tei-ichi said, and went back to his study. The rain was getting harder.

The girls felt restless and put away their sewing. Shige came into the kitchen and started to make a fire in the range. The dark and damp kitchen became steamy and hot. Shige said, ‘Don’t worry. Mata will soon bring them back.’

While it was getting dark inside the house, it was not yet dark on the sea, but the rain was coming down harder and the bottom of the boat was full of water. The straw hats were no longer useful. Many times the boat nearly capsized and Yasuharu realised that it would soon start to sink.

‘Hideto,’ Yasuharu called. ‘You are the best swimmer in the prefecture, aren’t you?’

Hideto said, ‘Yes,’ but the sea around them was so different from the sea on the day of the swimming competition.

‘Hideto,’ Yasuharu called again, keeping his balance. ‘Carry Shuichi on your back and swim back to the shore.’

Hideto could not believe what he was hearing. It was true he was the best swimmer in the prefecture. For two years he had come first at all the prefecture swimming competitions for the adults. He had never felt tired, even after swimming a long-distance race. He remembered the sight of many heads behind him all in a line as though they were strung together by a long string, and the roll of drums from boats with flags bobbing up and down. The sky was blue and there were spectacular summer clouds. There was also sweet crystallised sugar thrust from the boats in a long-handled spoon.

Hideto was about to say, ‘I cannot do it. It is not possible,’ when his brother ordered him with all the authority of an eldest brother. ‘Don’t think. Just do it. We have to save Shu-chan ... Look there!’ Yasuharu had seen the faint glimmer of lights.

Yasuharu untied his sash and passed it across the little boy’s goose-pimpled back, under his arms and around Hideto’s chest. He crossed it in front, wound it back and tied it securely.

‘Go!’ Hideto jumped into the water. Even though he was the best swimmer in the prefecture, for the sixteen-year-old, an eight-year-old boy was heavy. Tossed about by the waves Hideto swam. Shuichi was holding on to him tightly.

At the shore, a big fire had been built. Women and children were out, and as the children ran near the fire, mothers and grandmothers scolded them. Men were calling, ‘Shuichi dansama, Yasuharu dansama, Hideto dansama, Doctor Komoto,’ in turn.

Somebody shouted, ‘Oh, there’s Hide dansama and Shu dansama!’ Hideto appeared, staggering in the light of the torches, supported by a group of men who had formed a search party down the coast. One of them carried Shuichi.

Yasuharu and Dr Komoto arrived a few minutes later. They had abandoned the sinking boat shortly after Hideto.

Hideto was sitting in front of the fire, hugging his knees. Kei stroked his back. It was the first time Haruko had seen her grandmother cry. She was saying, ‘Oh, well done. You are brave. Well done,’ with a tear-stained face.

They could not find Tei-ichi. Only Matabei knew where he was. He was standing alone on a cliff overlooking the sea, but Matabei did not tell anyone.

The next day, Tei-ichi called Hideto. He said, ‘I will give this to you,’ and gave him an antique sword forged by a famous swordsmith. It was the most precious treasure belonging to the family.