Читать книгу Togakushi Legend Murders - Yasuo Uchida - Страница 7

The bolt came loose with a noise so loud it frightened him. Apparently, though, it was lost in the wind, because he heard no sign of any movement in the house. Since sundown, the wind had been strong enough to sway the larger branches of the trees. The whole mountainside had come astir, and an occasional gust of wind roared like a howling beast past the eaves. It was a south wind, out of season for the end of November. The old people of the village said such a wind could bode no good. But for him, it came at just the right time.

Slowly, very slowly, he opened the heavy sliding door, then crept up the step into the hallway, his face so close to the ground that he might as well have been sniffing for scents. Lying on the floor, he closed the door. Making sure there was still no noise in the house, he finally stood up and headed for the room he wanted.

He was a little lame in the right leg. During military training the year before last, the gun of a new recruit had gone off accidentally, sending a bullet through his right thigh. At the time, he could have killed the man, but when he realized that the injury had gotten him out of further military service, he could have thanked him. Actually, it didn't hurt much any more, and although he couldn't run, at least he didn't have much trouble walking. In the presence of others, however, he was very careful to exaggerate his limp, and at every change of season, he complained to everyone he met of the pain, and cursed his ill fortune. Whenever he met families of soldiers at the front, of course, he always told them that he couldn't wait to get into battle himself. If only his leg would heal, he would add, chewing his lip.

Nearly all the young men of the village had been drafted. Even those with families, as long as they were young and healthy, were receiving their red slips one after another. The only ones yet left were those who were extremely lucky, or those like him, who were physically unsound. And no matter how lucky a man might be, the red slip was sure to come sooner or later. But he had made his own luck, and as long as he kept on acting, he would be safe.

As the tide of war turned against the country, the sad notifications of those killed in battle were pouring in. Some families had already lost all their breadwinners. He had been going around visiting such families, consoling the widows, and helping out with any work requiring strength. Men's hands had become scarce in the village, and in spite of his disability, his services had become invaluable everywhere. He had always been a careful and diligent worker anyway, and his somewhat guilty conscience had pushed him to work even harder.

Needless to say, no matter how good the intentions of a young man, it was not really desirable for him to enter the home of a young widow or a daughter come of age. In the present state of things, however, society could not afford the luxury of such gossip, so it was tacitly understood that everyone would look the other way. Actually, he couldn't say what his intentions had been. Maybe it was just what happened when a man and woman were thrown together like that. It had happened to him with not just one widow, but three. And he—not particularly attractive to women until then—had gone into such ecstasy as to believe that any village woman worthy of the name could be his for the asking. Why, then, had he been forever wearing himself out for others? More and more, he had felt a compulsion to take a girl of marriageable age for himself, a compulsion so strong that he had actually tried to do it, thereby getting himself into very serious trouble. The girl's father had nearly killed him, and he had escaped only by making an abject apology.

With the spread of rumors of that encounter, even the widows who had been giving him their favors became wary of their reputations and would no longer let him come near them. And now, having thus tasted sex and being unbearably hungry for more, the only way he could see to get it was to steal into a house under cover of night and make a woman his. Such a custom had long since disappeared from the village, but he knew that it had once existed, and he had resolved to follow it.

Stealing through the hallway, he did worry that he was setting his sights terribly high, but he had persuaded himself that if he was going to do it at all, he might as well do it big. Taki had always been like a goddess to him. A marriage to her was something worth risking his life for. Besides, the only other people in the house were an old servant couple, Keijiro and his wife, so even if something did go wrong, he would not be likely to encounter such an ugly scene as had occurred last time.

* * *

Descendants of a long line of old-time diviners, the Tendoh family held a special position among the hereditary families of Shinto priests who tended the Togakushi Shrines. Taki was the Tendohs' only daughter, a girl of extraordinary beauty even in early childhood, whose fame had spread to places as far distant as Tokyo through visitors to the shrine and students of Shintoism. As a little girl dancing in her shrine-maiden's outfit, she had always enthralled her audiences.

As she grew up, her looks had ceased to be the only thing extraordinary about her. Time and again, she had seemed possessed, in words and conduct. Science could not explain her behavior, leaving it to individual opinion whether she was merely insane, or whether she was truly possessed by spirits. But belief in spiritual possession was in the nature of the Togakushi region, and she quickly became known among the villagers and Shintoists as a girl of very special powers.

Fearing what those powers might become when they matured, however, Taki's parents had not welcomed their daughter's singular predisposition, so when she graduated from grade school in the spring of her fourteenth year, they had sent her to Tokyo—on the pretext that she was going there to learn manners—to be entrusted to the care of the family of a viscount, who was their close friend and an enthusiastic worshipper at the Togakushi shrines.

She had returned to Togakushi three years later, along with the viscount's son, who was being sent to stay with the Tendohs in hopes of effecting a cure for his tuberculosis through a change of climate. It had been given out that Taki was to act as his nurse, but those close to the Tendohs could see that the two young people were strongly attached.

That had been in the summer of the year before last, and since then, the Tendoh household had been visited by misfortune. At the end of last year, Taki's parents had both died within a short time of each other of malignant influenza compounded by pneumonia, there being no way to get the proper medicines to fight the diseases. Then, at the end of the summer of this year, with the war situation worsening and even students rapidly being drafted, the viscount's son had finally been called back to Tokyo, leaving the stately Tendoh home inhabited only by Taki, about to turn nineteen, and the elderly servant couple, both over sixty.

* * *

The intruder had thus persuaded himself that there was nothing to fear—except perhaps Taki herself. He was not sure that he would not lose his nerve when he came face to face with her, whom he had always considered totally out of his reach. The respected Tendoh family, with its long line of Shinto priests, had a history dating back to the Muromachi period, and what was he but the son of miserable peasants? To be sure, he had been born with a good head on his shoulders and had attracted a fair amount of attention to himself in school, serving as class leader and all that, but graduation had left him still just the son of peasants. By no stretch of the imagination was he a suitable match for a girl of her class. In a peaceful world with a stable society, he would never have been trying such a preposterous trick. But times were different now, maybe so different that he might even succeed. If he did, he would be taking the heiress of the Tendoh family for his bride. Carnal desire and greed were making him bold as well as desperate.

Having helped out at the end of every year with the traditional housecleaning, he was thoroughly familiar with the rooms Taki used. The first double sliding door past the turn of the hallway was the entrance to her bedroom, but just before he got to the turn, he heard her coming out. Hastily, he took cover behind a large cabinet. The sliding door opened and a dim light threw her snadow across the floor. Holding a candlestick, she stepped out into the hall. He almost said something at the sight of her in her shrine-maiden's dancing costume of white tunic and crimson pantaloons, red lips vibrant in a pale face illuminated by the flickering candle. When she closed the door behind her, her face looked even more a vision in the candlelight, and though he wondered what she could be up to at this time of night, he was overcome by her otherworldly beauty.

Quietly, she opened the big sliding closet door across the hallway. The closet appeared to be stuffed with instruments of Shinto rituals. Taking hold of a big cross-tied box on the far right, she lifted it without seeming effort, which surprised him, because it looked quite heavy. Setting it down in the hallway, she stepped into the closet. He couldn't imagine what she was doing, and he was even more surprised when she closed the door behind her, leaving the hallway dark again, except for a dim light visible under the door. Soon, even that disappeared.

For a while he just stood there, expecting her to come out again any second. But she didn't. He stood motionless for five or ten minutes. Then he thought he heard voices, hushed whispers that seemed to come from far away, but he could tell they were young, much too young to be those of Keijiro and his wife.

Pretty soon, he recognized one of the voices as Taki's, but he still could not identify the other. He found enough courage to go over to the closet door, press his ear against it, and listen hard. Now he clearly heard laughter, hers and someone else's, fainter. He opened the door and entered the closet. Taki was not there, but the voices became much clearer. Then he heard her, in a passionate voice, say the name "Tomohiro."

It was that fellow! Tomohiro was the name of the viscount's son—Tomohiro Tachibana. The intruder felt the blood rush to his head. While helping in the garden, he had often seen Tachibana pass by on the veranda. He could see the pale oval face, the face of a boy with an elite upbringing. Taki was always following close behind, with no concern for the eyes of a mere hired hand like himself. He had hardly existed for either of them, but the effeminate boy from Tokyo was robbing him of his goddess, and he could not bear the humiliation and jealousy.

As he cursed to himself about the viscount's son enjoying Taki's favors, probably in a secret room behind the closet, he suddenly remembered that Tachibana shouldn't be there at all. He had received his draft notice and was supposed to have returned to Tokyo! But who else could it be? The intruder groped frantically along the wall. There had to be a device somewhere for moving it! Finally, by mere chance, he touched something and felt a slight motion, seemingly of the entire wall in front of him sliding to the left a bit. With great caution, he pushed it further, until suddenly he was blinded by a bright light shining through the opening. When his eyes adjusted, what he saw made him dizzy.

The area of the room was only about three mats, but still, having worked in that house practically every day, he didn't see how he could have failed to notice it, small as it was. He could not imagine how the space had been designed to hide such a discrepancy.

Against the opposite wall, a girl and boy were locked in an embrace. On a thick silk pallet, the boy was lying on his back and the girl was face down on top of him, her crimson pantaloons discarded near her feet. Her white tunic mostly covered them, but he could tell from the protruding hands and feet and a glimpse of the girl's back that they were naked.

There was no mistake. The girl was Taki and the boy was indeed the viscount's son. The intruder saw her sit up astride him and cry out for joy, upon which the boy raised himself and embraced her madly. The tunic fell from their shoulders, revealing practically their whole bodies under the light of an electric bulb.

* * *

The south wind had stopped blowing, and the day passed pleasantly with no wind at all. Keijiro and his wife spent all day in the garden cleaning up dry leaves and twigs.

"Can I help with anything?" offered Tachibana.

"Don't be ridiculous!" replied Keijiro, glaring at him. "You're taking a chance just coming out onto the veranda. You'd better get back inside."

"Oh, it's all right. Nobody will see me," laughed Tachibana. Confident he was safe, he didn't mind having a little fun with the old man. He had been hiding here for three months, and all the tranquillity was beginning to bore him. He could no longer believe the eyes of the authorities might find him all the way out in this lonely village deep in the mountains. Just once, several men from the Nagano City Police had come and searched every corner of the house, but they had completely missed the secret room. It had already been two months since that search, and Tachibana was sure that the army and the military police must have forgotten all about him.

"Tomohiro! You shouldn't be here!" exclaimed Taki in a shrill voice behind him.

"Oh! You scared me!" He made a show of jumping. When he turned around, however, her look really frightened him, though it did not express anger, but rather fear.

"Okay, okay," said Tachibana, making a joke of it as he withdrew into the room. Taki quickly slid the door shut and came up to face him.

"Why can't you understand how worried we are about you?" she said, crying. Taki was subject to sharp and violent swings of emotion.

"There's nothing to worry about. I know what I'm doing."

"Then will you please stop going out onto the veranda? It frightens me terribly."

"Okay, since you feel that strongly about it. But you sure are a worrier, you know," Tachibana laughed.

Taki didn't even smile. She just stood there looking at him for a moment, then suddenly fell to her knees and began to topple over forward.

"You'll hurt yourself!" he cried, dropping to the floor and catching her in his lap, where he put his arm around her. She clung to his neck, her face close to his, crying wordlessly. She would not tell him what was wrong. She had done many strange things, but he had never seen her like this before. He spoke to her as he would to a small child. "Now why don't you just tell me what's making you so sad? If you won't tell me, how can I do anything about it?"

"When you go, it will be all over for me," she managed in fragments, beginning to sob convulsively.

"Me? Go? Where? Where is it you think I'm going?" he asked gently, rocking her in his lap.

She began to shake her head in time to the rocking. He knew this was her way of saying that she didn't know. The fear that had overcome her was a vague one. With hardly bearable pity, he held her close. "I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'm always going to be with you."

But Taki's fear was beyond the reach of Tachibana's protestations of everlasting affection. Apparently frightened by some sort of premonition, she seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into melancholy. Tachibana had been seeing that melancholy ever since he received word from his father in Tokyo that the red draft slip had come for him.

At the time, unable to believe the authorities would have sent a red slip to him, the eldest son and heir of a viscount, a college student, and one presently taking a cure for tuberculosis besides, he had thought there must be some mistake. Although he told Taki cheerfully that he would be back in no time, she had warned him emphatically not to go and had given him a lot of trouble. Tearing himself away from her and going to Tokyo, he had found a hard reality awaiting him. His draft deferment had been canceled, and his father the viscount, apparently on extremely bad terms with the military, had apologized to him with a look of fear that Tachibana had never seen before, and which frightened him to the core. He was sure that if he were ever sent to the battlefield, he would die before an enemy bullet ever hit him.

But Tachibana did not want to die, and his father's fainthearted look told him it was all right to run. The elder Tachibana must have known what that would mean for the rest of the family, but thought it preferable to having his whole family line cut off. "This war can't last much longer," he said finally, avoiding the expression of any personal feeling before turning abruptly and walking away.

Having gotten the message that he should not throw away his life, Tachibana had run. The day before he was supposed to report, he had taken the morning train from Ueno and arrived in Nagano that evening. Avoiding the bus, he had headed for Togakushi along the winding path that led from behind the Zenko Temple to the old road. Hurrying through the night on an empty stomach without a stop at either of the two teahouses along the way, solely concerned with getting to his destination, he had reached the Tendoh house in the dead of night, and been startled to find Taki waiting for him beside the door. Keijiro and his wife were up as well, happily preparing a bath for him.

"Taki was sure you would be here, and here you are! Now don't you worry about a thing. We're all ready to protect you," said Keijiro, alluding to the secret room. He and his wife were crying for joy, unconcerned that Tachibana was betraying his country.

That night, Tachibana had slept with Taki for the first time, at her instigation. She had come into the secret room behind the closet in her shrine-maiden's dancing costume and put something that looked like dried weeds into an incense burner. When he asked her what it was, she had answered only that it was hemp, as she put her head coquettishly against his chest. The bluish smoke rising over the incense burner had filled him with a miraculous feeling of exaltation, such that all his fears and troubles and self-hatred gave way to an expansive feeling that the only people in the world were himself and Taki. His time of joy and fulfillment passed in a dream, and before long, he had fallen into a deep sleep.

And now, three months later, Taki had another such premonition. He could reason it away, but seeing how unhappy she was, he could not rid himself of the uneasy feeling that she might be right. As evening approached, her state became really alarming. At supper, she did not touch her food, but kept looking around her restlessly, throwing her arms around him from time to time. Infected by her fear, Keijiro and his wife were both nervous and kept getting up to make sure all the doors were locked.

After sunset, the north wind began to blow, and the evening cold belied the comfortable warmth of the day. Taki made Tachibana retire early to the secret room, staying right beside him all the time, too rigid to speak and crying incessantly. She could not tell him what was frightening her. She knew only that something evil was approaching.

Around nine, they heard the sound of a car coming up the slope and stopping in front of the house. She held her breath, and he could feel her clinging ever harder to him. Voices came from the entryway, Keijiro asking who was there, and a very loud voice answering. Tachibana did not recognize the name given, but he was relieved to realize that he did know the voice. Keijiro must have been just as relieved, because he released the lock and opened the door.

Simultaneously with Keijiro's scream, they heard an unfamiliar, angry voice, followed by the rude clump of street shoes approaching down the hallway. "There!" said the first voice, and they heard the closet door open. Something fell, and then the wall was yanked open in front of them. A young military officer stood there, gripping his saber. Seeing his military police armband, Tachibana knew all was over.

"Oho! You've been living quite a life here, I see!" said the officer, barging straight into the room, casting a lecherous look at Taki in her shrine-maiden's costume. "Well, you can't make fools of the army like that." He glanced back at the NCO behind him, then turned toward Tachibana and shouted, "Get up!"

Tachibana stood up slowly, pulling his robe closed across his chest, Taki cowering at his feet. With no warning, the officer slammed Tachibana with his fist, knocking him back against the wall. With difficulty, Tachibana regained his footing.

"Handcuff him!" ordered the officer.

The NCO yanked Tachibana's hands behind him and put handcuffs on so tight they dug into his skin. Then the officer hit him again, this time full in the face, knocking him flat. His head hit the wall as he fell, and he began to lose consciousness. Though aware his nose was bleeding, strangely enough, he felt no pain at all. He heard Taki scream.

"Hey, get those funny clothes off the girl," said the officer with a leer.

"Huh?" said the NCO, hesitating.

"Hop to it!" shouted the officer.

The NCO put his hands on Taki. Tachibana tried to cry out, but his voice wouldn't work. The crimson pantaloons and white tunic were ripped off.

"All of them!" rasped the officer.

"Yes, sir!" said the NCO, his eyes getting bloodshot like the officer's. He slapped Taki's cheeks as she tried desperately to resist, distracted with fear, her eyes vacant and moving aimlessly, her whole body twitching. Dimly seeing her exposed breasts, Tachibana finally managed to raise himself, open his mouth, and shout, whereupon the officer shoved the muzzle of his gun into it. With the excruciating pain of broken front teeth, he sprawled backwards.

"You do it first," said the officer with a lewd laugh. "I don't mind."

"No, no, after you, Lieutenant."

"Don't be silly! Go ahead!"

"No, I'll go last."

Totally limp against the wall, Tachibana heard the misplaced courtesies from far away. The last thing he heard was the officer saying, "Now take this, you son of a bitch," as he kicked him in the pit of the stomach with his military boot. Tachibana's already foggy vision went blank.

* * *

On August 20, 1945, the Hoko Shrine village suffered the most disastrous fire in its history.

Seeing the flames lick upward, Haru Kusumoto knew immediately that it was going to be a big one. The summer's drought had been endless. Not only had there not been any rain for the past month, there hadn't even been any clouds worthy of the name. The dry south wind coming across the Zenkoji Plain had been blowing up the slope all day every day, until it had taken every last drop of moisture out of the soil.

Situated on an incline at the southern edge of the Togakushi Plateau, the village centered on ten-odd households of Shinto priests who tended the Hoko Shrine, one of the three main shrines of Togakushi. The approach to the peak where the shrine stood was a straight road up a long steep slope lined on both sides with the magnificent thatched-roof houses of the priests, around which were scattered the houses and shops of the villagers. At the top of the slope, the road made a wide detour to the right around the base of the peak and continued on toward the village around the Middle Shrine.

Standing on the very summit of the peak, the Hoko Shrine was reached by a precipitous stone staircase from the top of the slope. Togakushi had once been a mecca for ascetics practicing their religious austerities, and this staircase was one of the remnants of that past. Standing at the bottom and looking far up the stairs between the giant cedars, most people dreaded the thought of climbing them.

Even some of the local people, not to mention many unaccustomed worshippers from afar, avoided the main approach up the stairs in favor of the gentler "Women's Slope" to the left.

But it was not until she became pregnant with her first child, her daughter Natsue, that Haru Kusumoto had begun to use the Women's Slope. Until then, ever since she was old enough, she had always used the long staircase in both directions. Even now, she was still in the habit of breezing down it.

Leaving the shrine office, Haru looked back from the top of the stairs to see Natsue still watching her from the passageway that ran from the office to the shrine stage like the gallery used in Noh drama. Leaning against the railing, Natsue spread out her arms and gave the long sleeves of her shrine-maiden's dancing costume a big shake. It was the cute mannerism of a child, but looking at her from this distance, Haru realized that her daughter was growing up. Give her just six months or a year.

In addition to the regular rituals, for a suitable donation the dancers and musicians of the Hoko Shrine could be employed at any time, as they were this day, to make special offerings for individual parishioners or groups. Until shortly before, warlike prayers for victory and good fortune in battle had been in the overwhelming majority, but with the official surrender, these had given way completely to prayers for the safe return of soldiers from foreign campaigns, and routine peacetime prayers for a good harvest and family safety.

Only Shinto priests and their families could be shrine dancers. It was the obligation of every little girl born into a Shinto priest's family, as soon as she reached school age, to serve several shifts a week dancing on the stage as a shrine maiden. She was relieved of the obligation only when she reached puberty, a menstruating woman being the greatest taboo in a Shinto ritual.

Looking back, most women had fond memories of the days they had spent dancing on the shrine stage, but for some little girls, it could be a very trying experience. A shy child like Natsue, for instance, would never get used to the stage no matter how long she spent on it. On a day when it was her turn to serve, she was always in a bad mood, from the time she got up. It was Haru's job to coax her into her costume and get her to the shrine office, from which point her husband Nagaharu, a Shinto priest, took over.

Waving back at Natsue, Haru turned to go down the steps, and it was then that she saw the flames. The lines of cedars, said to be hundreds of years old, rose toward the sky on either side of the staircase. In the green of the branches which hung over the stairs from left and right, there remained a thin strip of open space directly above, and through that space, from the vicinity of the farmers' houses at the bottom of the slope far off in the distance, she saw a column of smoke and flame shooting up almost like a signal flare.

It was later determined that the fire had started in a barn, the result of three little children accidentally setting fire to the hemp-stalk wall while playing with matches. Of the principal products of Togakushi, the best known by far was buckwheat, but next came hemp, which flourished because the soil was conducive to the growth of long fibers of high quality. The stalks were a by-product that remained after the outer skin was peeled off for fiber, and when dried they burned very well and could be used for such things as fuel for the big fires built as a send-off for the spirits at the end of the celebration of their annual visit. Unfortunately, the local farmers also used the stalks to make the inner thatching for the walls and roofs of their barns, because they provided the needed ventilation and were the cheapest thing available. But in the event of a fire, there was no material worse.

Consuming the hemp-stalk wall in an instant, the fire leaped quickly to some brushwood piled up in the barn and then to the thatched roof, from which it soared skyward with an appalling shower of sparks. Except for the post office and the school, almost every building had a thatched roof, every one dry as a withered shepherd's purse. The fire jumped first to the house of the barn owner, and about the time that house was enveloped in flames, blue smoke was beginning to rise from the roofs of surrounding houses.

Any number of unfortunate circumstances compounded the disaster. Next to the drought itself, there was the fact that the fire had started at the lower edge of the village, and was thus blown up the slope by the dry south wind from the valley. Lunch was over and all hands had just gone off again to the fields. The drought had completely dried up the water supply for firefighting. In normal weather, the stands of cedar would have served to impede the flames, but the tips of their sprigs had dried to the color of straw, and far from serving as a check, they flared up like giant torches as soon as the resin was heated to combustion point by the fiery hot wind.

Nagaharu Kusumoto, who came running at his wife's call, stood there at the top of the stairs and groaned. He was still in the costume of the god Tajikarao, in which role he was always cast because of his strong build. Based on the myth of the Rock Door of the Heavens, the performance at the Hoko Shrine consisted of such parts as the goddess Uzume's dance, with Tajikarao's opening of the Rock Door as a climax, and the Dance of Urayasu, performed by shrine maidens. Other priests came running out after Nagaharu. Mitsuyoshi Otomo, who had been playing the role of Uzume, came out in a white flaxen tunic over a crimson pleated skirt. His gentle face instantly began to twitch. Of all the priests there, his house appeared closest to the fire, although the view was obstructed by the cedars, making it hard to determine the exact location from which the smoke was rising.

"Oh my God! I've got to get down there," said Mitsuyoshi, dropping his skirt on the ground and rushing down the steps.

"Father Otomo," called Haru after him, suddenly remembering, "Would you check Taki's place, too, please?"

"Okay," called Mitsuyoshi, too busy watching his footsteps to turn or even nod his head, leaving Haru wondering if he had really heard.

Toward the end of the year before, the military police had come to Taki Tendoh's house and taken away the viscount's son, who had been harbored there. Haru had heard from Keijiro and his wife that the men had raped Taki. Several days later, Taki, Keijiro, and his wife had been arrested, this time by the civilian police. Three months after that, Taki had been released alone and sent home, four months pregnant, and insane. Since then, she had been taken care of by Haru and her mother.

"I wonder what this is going to do to Taki," said Haru to her husband, standing beside her. Taki was due this month, and Haru was afraid the shock might cause her to give birth on the spot. She didn't know what they would do if that happened.

But Nagaharu did not seem to hear her. "Why aren't they ringing the fire bell?" he shouted.

"Isn't that fire pretty close to the fire tower?" someone shouted back.

"Then maybe they can't get the firefighting pump out," shouted someone else.

Everyone was apprehensive, imagining what was going to happen to the place if they were forced to just let the fire burn itself out.

"Anyway, all of you had better get home," said Nagaharu. "Haru, you take Natsue and get down there quick."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Warn the villagers with the drum. Without the bell, people in the fields and mountains may not know there's a fire yet." He started at a run toward the shrine.

At the shrine stage, the religious group gathered to witness the dance offering they were supposed to get for their donation stirred in surprise as Tajikarao burst on stage and began to beat the drum with a discordant rhythm. Hurried along by the sound, Haru, with Natsue by the hand, went down the Women's Slope. Still in her shrine-maiden's costume, Natsue had trouble keeping her cuffs from getting tangled as she tried to keep up with her mother. On top of that, she was still holding the bell she had been using in the dance, and it was ringing busily with every step she took. This annoyed Haru, but she couldn't tell Natsue to throw it away. Moving along to the mingling of drum and bell, she was greatly surprised to find herself imagining that she was back dancing on stage in the days of her childhood.

The Kusumoto house was right at the base of the peak, so Nagaharu could afford to let the other priests go down first, because his house was farthest away from the fire. Haru's mother, Nobu, was standing outside the yew hedge wondering what to do. "It's a big one!" she exclaimed, relieved to see Haru. She pointed all around toward the bottom of the slope. In the time it had taken Haru to get down from the peak, the smoke had spread considerably.

"Where did it start?" asked Haru.

"Who knows? The patrolman from the Middle Shrine was here a few minutes ago, and he says he got word that the fire had even got into the post office."

"Even the post office? That means it must be all over the bottom of the slope."

"I guess so. Dry as it is, who can tell how far it will burn?" Suddenly Nobu realized someone was missing. "Where's Nagaharu?"

"He's beating the drum, because the firebell didn't ring."

"Oh he is, is he?" Nobu looked up at the peak. She was used to the sound of the drum, but right now it only made her mad. "At a time like this, he ought to be down here with us. What are we supposed to do without him?" she said, scowling. Nagaharu was an adopted son-in-law. The Kusumotos had produced only women for the last two generations, and he and Haru had yet to produce a son.

"I wonder how Taki's doing?" worried Haru. The smoke did not look like it was too far from the Tendoh house. "I'm going to go have a look."

"This is no time for you to be doing that!"

"I'll be right back. Would you mind getting Natsue changed out of her costume?" said Haru over her shoulder as she rushed off.

As Haru came around the curve at the top of the slope, the whole scene of the fire came into view. The level area at the bottom was already a sea of flames, and even outside that area, the fire had spread to ten or more houses. It seemed to be moving faster along the houses to the east than it was north up the slope with its many trees, and there was already a lot of smoke pouring from the windows of the school building, about a hundred meters from the heart of the flames. If the school caught, the fire would spread much further in one leap. Haru imagined the scene as she ran along with shaky knees.

The handcart with the pump being brought down from the Middle Shrine village rattled loudly past her. The firemen in their livery coats were mostly middle-aged or older, and their hoarse shouts to mark time as they pulled the pump hardly inspired confidence. Out of the blue smoke into which they were headed came small groups of people fleeing up the slope with only the clothes on their backs. The fire must have spread too quickly for them to save a thing. They hurried along as fast as they could, covered with soot, children howling and adults raving.

As Haru reached the Otomo house, the family was trying to get its belongings out. Two houses away, the farmer's roof had caught fire, and they could feel the heat on their cheeks with every gust of wind.

"It's no use. We've got no water," said Mitsuyoshi, carrying an oblong chest, nodding toward the pond in his garden. A little stagnant water was barely visible on the bottom, and the newts were turned red bellies upward.

"Did you check on Taki?"

"Yes, but she wasn't there. She must have already fled."

Placing the chest on the cart, Mitsuyoshi hurried back into the house. Out of it came his wife, moving slowly with her palsied mother-in-law leaning on her shoulder. The younger woman grinned at Haru. What the grin might mean, Haru could not guess. The older one, her bloodshot eyes fixed on the sky, kept mumbling about the wrath of the gods. She had suffered a collapse from the shock of the defeat, and since then had taken it into her head that the gods were sure to punish Japan for its unconditional surrender.

Mitsuyoshi had said that Taki was not there, but Haru decided to check anyway. Taki's house was just a block away on the other side of the street, and it would be only a matter of time before the fire reached it. Haru could already hear the rustle of sparks falling on the tops of the cedars, oaks, and chestnut trees above her.

Entering the house, she found the air unexpectedly cool. It was dark inside, and her eyes took some time to adjust. She called Taki's name any number of times from the entryway. The houses of all Shinto priests were big, intended as they were to provide accommodations for religious groups, but the Tendoh house was conspicuously larger than most, and Haru could not be sure that her voice would carry to every corner of it. It was no time for ceremony, and she did not bother to take off her shoes. Going to the back, she looked into the bedroom. Taki was not there. Haru called out at the top of her voice, then strained her ears for an answer. Finally, she heard a faint moaning.

Taki was in the garden at the back, crawling on the ground on all fours, her face smeared with mud.

"What are you doing, Taki?" scolded Haru.

"It's coming out... it's coming out..." Taki howled at the sky like a wolf, her hand pressed against her lower abdomen, as if she were trying to hold back a bowel movement. Her belt was undone and the front of her unlined kimono was dragging on the ground, her breasts and her gigantic belly half exposed.

"What's coming out, Taki? Do you mean the baby's being born?" asked Haru, rushing over and quickly tying Taki's belt.

"It's coming out, it's coming out," Taki kept on, bobbing her head up and down. Each time her head went down, her tears dripped onto the ground. Fear and pain were once again distracting this unfortunate girl.

Haru had to do something, but what? "Taki, you wait here. I'm going to get my mother." She started to go.

"Don't go! Oh, please, don't go," cried Taki desperately.

"But..." As Haru turned to look at her, Taki fell flat on her back, her legs toward Haru, and the bottom of her kimono fell open. Before Haru could avert her eyes from the embarrassing sight, what she saw made her gasp. From between Taki's spread thighs, a blood-smeared spherical mass was pushing its way out. It was unmistakably the baby's head. All over Taki's white thighs and buttocks were dribbles of slime that looked like the trails of slugs, and trickles of blood were running everywhere.

She would die like this, thought Haru, rushing into the house in a daze. She fumbled all over the place in the darkness until she had managed to find two cushions, a pair of scissors for cutting the umbilical cord, and some thread, then she went back to the garden.

The baby's shoulders were already visible. Taki's arms and legs were stiff, and she was groaning intermittently, apparently with the effort of trying to push the baby out. Haru placed the cushions under Taki's buttocks. The baby came out slowly above them. With an agility she would not have believed possible of herself, Haru took hold of it and laid it gently on the cushions.

In the distance, she heard the roar of the fire.