The Sound of the Mountain (19 page)

‘And what about Fusako’s things?’

‘My chests and trunks have been empty for a long time, Mother.’

‘I see.’ Yasuko sighed. ‘You’re an easy target for him and come home with everything you own tied up in one kerchief.’

Shingo wondered whether Fusako might know where Aihara was, and whether she might be in communication with him.

And as he looked out at the garden, moving into dusk, he wondered who it was that had been unable to keep Aihara from falling, Fusako or Shingo or Aihara himself. Or perhaps no one at all.

Shingo got to the office at about ten to find a note from Tanizaki Eiko.

She wanted to talk to him about the young mistress, and would come again later.

The young mistress could only be Kikuko.

Shingo questioned Iwamura Natsuko, who had replaced Eiko as his secretary.

‘What time was Tanizaki here?’

‘I had just come in and was dusting the desks. I suppose it would have been a little after eight.’

‘Did she wait?’

‘Yes, for a while.’

Shingo disliked the dull, heavy way in which Natsuko said ‘Yes’. Perhaps it had to do with her native dialect.

‘Did she see Shuichi?’

‘I believe she went away without seeing him.’

‘Oh?’ Shingo was talking to himself. ‘If it was a little after eight, then …’

Eiko had probably come on her way to work. She would probably come again at noon.

After rereading the note, tiny at the edge of a large sheet of paper, he looked out of the window.

He looked out at the clear sky of the most May-like of May days.

He had seen it from the train. All the passengers looking out had their windows open.

The birds skimming low over the shining stream that marked the limits of Tokyo shone silver themselves. It seemed more than accidental that a red-banded bus should be crossing the bridge to the north.

‘In the heavens, a high wind.’ For no particular reason, he repeated the motto on his counterfeit Ryokan.

‘Well!’ The Ikegami grove came into view, and he leaned forward as if he meant to jump out. ‘Maybe the pines aren’t in the Ikegami grove at all.’

This morning the two pines that stood out above the grove seemed nearer.

Had it been that, in the rains and the spring mists, the perspective had been blurred?

He gazed on, trying to make sure.

He gazed at them every morning, and he thought he would like to go and inspect the site itself.

But though he saw the grove every morning, he had only recently discovered the two pines. He had looked at it absently over the years, knowing that it was the grove of the Ikegami Hommonji Temple.

Today, in the clear May sky, he had discovered that the pine trees did not seem to be in the Ikegami grove at all.

And so he had twice discovered the two pines that leaned toward each other as if about to embrace.

When, last night after dinner, he had told of seeking out Aihara’s house and giving modest help to his old mother, the agitated Fusako had fallen silent.

He had felt sorry for her. He thought that he had discovered something in her, but what he had discovered was by no means as clear as the discovery in the Ikegami grove.

Some days earlier, looking out at this same grove, he had questioned Shuichi, and drawn from him the news of Kikuko’s abortion.

The pines were no longer just pines. They were entangled with the abortion. Perhaps he would always be reminded of it when he passed them to and from work.

This morning, of course, it had been so again.

On the morning of Shuichi’s admission, the pines had melted back into the grove, dim in the wind and rain. This morning, standing apart, associated in his mind with Kikuko’s abortion, they somehow looked dirty. Perhaps the weather was too good.

‘Even when natural weather is good, human weather is bad,’ he muttered to himself, somewhat inanely. Turning away from the clear sky framed in the office window, he set about the day’s work.

Shortly after noon there was a telephone call from Eiko. Busy with summer clothes, she would not be able to come by today.

‘You’re so good at it that you’re kept busy?’

‘Yes.’ Eiko fell silent.

‘You’re at the shop?’

‘Yes. But Kinu isn’t here.’ The name of Shuichi’s woman came out smoothly. ‘I waited for her to leave.’

‘Oh?’

‘Hello? I’ll stop by tomorrow morning.’

‘Tomorrow morning? At eight again?’

‘No. I’ll wait for you.’

‘It’s all that pressing?’

‘Yes. Well, it is and it isn’t. To me it seems pressing. I want to talk to you as soon as I can. I’m rather worked up about it.’

‘Worked up? About Shuichi?’

‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

He did not attach much importance to her being ‘worked up’, but he was uneasy that she should so want to talk as to come two days in a row.

The uneasiness increased. At about three he called Kikuko’s family house.

The Sagawa maid answered. Music came over the telephone as he waited for Kikuko.

He had not talked to Shuichi of Kikuko since she had gone home to her family. Shuichi seemed anxious to avoid the subject.

And Shingo had avoided going to inquire after Kikuko, because to do so would only have been to give the matter unnecessary emphasis.

Shingo thought that, being what she was, Kikuko would have spoken to her family neither of Kinu nor of the abortion. But he could not be sure.

Kikuko’s voice came up from the symphony over the telephone. ‘Father?’ There was affection in it. ‘I’ve kept you waiting.’

‘Hello.’ A surge of relief swept over him. ‘And how are you?’

‘Oh, I’m fine again. I’m pampering myself.’

‘Not at all.’ He found it hard to go on.

‘Father,’ said Kikuko happily. ‘I want to see you. May I come now?’

‘Now? Is it all right?’

‘Yes. The quicker I see you the easier it will be for me to go home again.’

‘I’ll be waiting here for you.’ The music went on. ‘Hello, hello,’ Shingo did not want to let her hang up. ‘That’s very good music.’

‘I forgot to turn it down, didn’t I? It’s ballet music.
Les Sylphides
, by Chopin. I’ll steal it from them and bring it home with me.’

‘You’re coming right away?’

‘Yes. But let me think a minute. I don’t really want to go to the office.’

She suggested that they meet at the Shinjuku Garden.

Shingo laughed, somewhat disconcerted at this proposed rendezvous.

Kikuko seemed to think that she had hit upon a remarkably good idea. ‘The green will bring you to life.’

‘The Shinjuku Garden? I’ve been there exactly once. For some reason or other I went to a dog show there.’

‘Come and let me show you myself instead.’ And after her laughter,
Les Sylphides
played on.

He went in through the main gate of the Shinjuku Garden.

A notice beside the gate announced that perambulators were available for thirty yen per hour, and straw mats for twenty yen per day and up.

There was an American couple ahead of him. The husband had a little girl in his arms, and the wife was leading a German pointer. There were other people too, all young couples. Only the Americans were walking at an easy pace.

Shingo fell in after them.

To the left of the path, what at first seemed to be a stand of deciduous pines proved to be deodars. When he had come to the dog show, a benefit given by an organization for the prevention of cruelty to animals, he had seen a remarkable stand of deodars; but he could not remember where.

To the right were signs identifying trees and shrubs as Oriental arbor vitae and
utsukushimatsu
^*
and the like.

He walked on at his leisure, thinking he would be ahead of Kikuko; but he found her on a bench under a gingko, by the pond to which the path shortly led.

Turning toward him and half rising to her feet, Kikuko bowed.

‘You’re early. It’s still fifteen minutes to half-past four.’ He looked at his watch.

‘I was so pleased when you called that I ran right out of the house.’ She spoke rapidly. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I was.’

‘So you’ve been waiting? Shouldn’t you have on something heavier?’

‘I’ve had this sweater since I was in school.’ A note of shyness came into her voice. ‘I don’t have any clothes at home anymore. I couldn’t very well borrow a kimono from my sister.’

Kikuko was the youngest of eight children, and all her sisters were married. It was probably to a sister-in-law that she had reference.

The dark green sweater had short sleeves. It seemed to Shingo that he was seeing her bare arms for the first time this year.

She apologized in a somewhat more formal manner for having gone home to her family.

‘Can you come back to Kamakura yet?’ he asked softly, not knowing what sort of reply was called for.

‘Yes.’ She nodded simply and quickly. ‘I’ve been wanting to come back.’ The beautiful shoulders moved as she gazed at Shingo. His eye had not caught the exact motion, but a gentle scent came from her to surprise him.

‘Did Shuichi go to see you?’

‘Yes. But if you hadn’t called …’

It would have been difficult for her to go back?

The remark unfinished, Kikuko stepped out of the shade.

The green of the giant trees, so rich as to be almost heavy, seemed to fall upon the slender neck of the retreating figure.

The lake was Japanese, after a fashion. On the little island, his foot on a stone lantern, a foreign soldier was joking with a prostitute. There were other couples on the benches around the lake.

Shingo followed Kikuko out through the trees to the right of the lake. ‘Enormous,’ he said, surprised at the vastness of the expanse before them.

‘It
has
brought you to life, Father,’ she said, openly pleased with herself. ‘I told you it would.’

Shingo stopped before a loquat beside the path. He did not immediately go out upon the broad lawn.

‘A splendid loquat. It has nothing to get in its way, and it spreads out just as it wants to, all the way to the bottom.’

Shingo was deeply moved by the form the tree had taken in free and natural growth.

‘Beautiful. Yes – when I came to the dog show there was a row of deodars growing just as they wanted to, spreading as far as they could spread, all the way down to the bottom. I felt like growing with them. I wonder where it was.’

‘Over in the direction of Shinjuku.’

‘Yes. I came in from Shinjuku.’

‘You said on the telephone that you came to look at dogs?’

‘There weren’t so many of them, but it was a benefit given by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. There were more foreigners than Japanese. Diplomats and people from the Occupation, I imagine. It was summer. The Indian girls were the most beautiful, all done up in red and blue silk gauzes. There were Indian and American stalls. We didn’t have many such affairs in those days.’

It had been two or three years before, but Shingo could not remember exactly when.

As he spoke, he moved away from the loquat tree.

‘Let’s get rid of the
yatsude
at the foot of the cherry. Remind me when you get home.’

‘I will.’

‘We’ve never cut back the cherry. I like it as it is.’

‘It has all those tiny branches loaded with flowers. We listened to the temple bell when it was in full bloom. Remember? Last month during the festival.’

‘Such a small thing – it’s good of you to remember.’

‘I’ll never forget. And there was the kite.’

She came close to him. They walked from the shadow of a great
keyaki
^*
out over the broad lawn.

The vast green expanse set Shingo free.

‘You can stretch out. It’s like getting out of Japan— I wouldn’t have dreamed that there was a place like this right in the middle of Tokyo.’ He gazed at the distant expanse of green toward Shinjuku.

‘They paid a great deal of attention to the vista. It looks even farther off than it is.’

‘What’s a vista?’ Kikuko had used the Italian word.

‘A line of vision, you might say. See how all the paths and the borders are in gentle curves.’

Kikuko had come on a school outing, and her teacher had told them all about the garden. The wide lawn, with trees scattered over it, was in the English fashion, it seemed.

There were few people other than young couples, lying down, sitting up, strolling casually about. There were also children, and schoolgirls in groups of five and six. Shingo was surprised, and somehow thought it inappropriate, that the park should be an Eden for assignations.

Did the scene tell one that the youth of the land had been liberated, just as the imperial garden had been?

No one paid the slightest attention to the two of them as they made their way over the lawn, weaving in and out among the couples. Shingo stayed as far from them as he could.

And what would Kikuko be thinking? He was an old man who had brought his young daughter-in-law to the garden, but there was something about the situation that did not rest well with him.

He had not given much thought to the matter when Kikuko had suggested over the telephone that they meet in the Shinjuku Garden, but now that they had come it all seemed very odd.

Shingo was drawn to one particularly high tree out on the lawn.

As he approached, looking up at it, the dignity and the mass of the towering green came grandly down to him, to wash away his and Kikuko’s gloom. She had been right to think that the garden would bring him to life.

The tree was what is called in Japan a ‘lily tree’. Coming nearer, he saw that it was in fact three trees. The sign explained that, since the flowers resemble both the lily and the tulip, it is also known as a tulip tree. A fast grower, it came originally from North America. These specimens were about fifty years old.

‘Fifty years old? They’re younger than I am.’ Shingo looked up in surprise.