Thousand Cranes (10 page)

He had been vacationing for some days at a friend’s villa on Lake Nojiri, and he had come back that afternoon.

The friend was married and had a baby. Not used to babies, Kikuji did not know whether it was large for its age, or indeed how old it was.

‘A well-developed baby,’ he finally said.

‘Not really,’ the wife answered. ‘It was tiny when it was born. Now, of course, it’s beginning to catch up.’

Kikuji passed a hand before the baby’s face. ‘It doesn’t blink.’

‘It can see, but blinking comes a little later.’

He had thought it would be perhaps six months old, but in fact it was barely a hundred days old. He understood why the hair of the young wife seemed thin, why her color was bad – she was still recovering from childbirth.

The life of the couple centered upon the baby. They seemed to have time only for the baby, and Kikuji felt a little left out. But on the train back, the thin figure of the wife, worn and somehow
drained of life, absently holding the baby in her arms – a quiet, docile young woman, one knew immediately – the figure was with him and would not leave. The friend lived with his family, and perhaps the wife, thus alone with her husband at a lakeside villa after the birth of this first child, felt a security that gave her a dreamy respite from thought.

At home now, lying on the veranda, Kikuji remembered the wife with a poignant, almost reverent affection.

Chikako came upon him there.

She marched into the room. ‘Well. In pitch dark.’

She knelt on the veranda, at Kikuji’s feet. ‘It’s hard being a bachelor. You have to lie in the dark, and no one will turn on the light for you.’

Kikuji curled his legs. He lay thus for a time, and sat up in distaste.

‘No, please. Stay as you are.’ She held out her right hand as if to motion him down, then made her formal bow. She had been to Kyoto and she had stopped at Hakone on the way back. In Kyoto, at the house of her tea master, she had met one Oizumi, a dealer in tea wares. ‘We talked and talked about your father. Really, it was the first good talk in such a long time. Oizumi said he’d show me the inn your father used for secret meetings, and off we went to a little inn on Kiya-machi. I suppose your father stayed there with Mrs Ota. And what did Oizumi do but suggest that I stay there myself? Very insensitive of him. With your father and Mrs Ota both dead, even someone like me would feel a little strange there in the middle of the night.’

Kikuji said nothing. Chikako was hardly demonstrating her own sensitiveness, he thought.

‘You’ve been to Lake Nojiri?’ She already knew the answer. It was her style to examine the maid the moment she arrived, and to come in unannounced.

‘I got back just a few minutes ago,’ Kikuji answered sullenly.

‘I’ve been back several days.’ Chikako’s answer too was curt. Abruptly, she hunched her left shoulder. ‘And I found when I got back that something very unfortunate had happened. I was shocked. A terrible thing – I don’t know how to face you.’

She told him that the Inamura girl was married.

In the darkness, Kikuji did not have to hide his surprise.

He was able to answer coolly. ‘Oh? When?’

‘Says he, just as if it didn’t concern him.’

‘But I gave you my refusal more than once.’

‘At least on the surface you did. So you wanted it to seem. You weren’t interested, you wanted it to seem, and a meddlesome old woman came bustling in, and pushed and pushed. Very annoying. But the girl herself was all right.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Kikuji laughed sardonically.

‘I imagine you liked the young lady well enough.’

‘A very nice young lady.’

‘I saw it all.’

‘The fact that I think she’s a nice girl doesn’t mean that I want to marry her.’

Yet he had felt a stabbing at the heart, and, as if with a violent thirst, he struggled to draw the girl’s face in his mind.

He had met her only twice.

To put her on display, Chikako had had her make tea in the Engakuji Temple. Her performance had been simple and elegant, and the impression was still vivid of the shoulders and the long kimono sleeves, and the hair too, radiant in light through paper doors. The shadows of leaves on the paper, the bright red tea napkin, the pink crepe handkerchief under her arm as she walked through the temple grounds to the tea cottage, the thousand white cranes – all of these floated freshly into his mind.

The second time, she had come here, and Chikako had made tea. Kikuji had felt the next day that the girl’s perfume lingered
on, and even now he could see her obi with its Siberian irises; but her face eluded him.

He could not call up the faces of his own mother and father, who had died three or four years before. He would look at a picture, and there they would be. Perhaps people were progressively harder to paint in the mind as they were near one, loved by one. Perhaps clear memories came easily in proportion as they were ugly.

Yukiko’s eyes and cheeks were abstract memories, like impressions of light; and the memory of that birthmark on Chikako’s breast was concrete as a toad.

Although the veranda was now dark, Kikuji could see that Chikako was wearing a white crepe singlet under her kimono. Even if it had been daylight he could not have seen through to the birthmark; but it was there before him, all the more distinct for the darkness.

‘Well, most men wouldn’t let a girl get away, while they were thinking what a nice girl she was. After all, there’s only one Yukiko in this world. You won’t find her again if you spend your whole life looking. It’s the simple things you don’t understand.’ Her manner was openly scolding. ‘You’re inexperienced and you pamper yourself. Well, this has changed her life and it’s changed yours. She was very interested. We can’t really say, can we, that you’re not responsible if her marriage isn’t happy?’

Kikuji did not answer.

‘You took a good look at her, I suppose. It doesn’t bother you to think that years and years from now a girl like her will remember you and think how much better it would have been if she could have married you?’

There was poison in her voice.

But if the girl was already married, why was all this necessary?

‘Fireflies? At this time of the year?’ She thrust her head forward. ‘It’s almost fall. There are still fireflies, are there? Like ghosts.’

‘The maid bought them.’

‘That’s the sort of thing maids do. If you were studying tea, now, you wouldn’t put up with it. You may not know, but in Japan we are very conscious of the seasons.’

There was indeed something ghostly about the fireflies. Kikuji remembered that autumn insects had been humming on the shores of Lake Nojiri. Very strange fireflies, alive even now.

‘If you had a wife, she wouldn’t depress you with end-of-the-season things.’ Suddenly her tone was soft and intimate. ‘I thought of arranging your marriage as a service to your father.’

‘A service?’

‘Yes. And what else happens while you lie in the dark staring at fireflies? The Ota girl gets married too.’

‘When?’ Kikuji was even more startled.

His show of composure struck him as remarkable, but something in his voice must have given him away.

‘I was just as shocked as you are, coming back from Kyoto and hearing about it. Both of them running off and getting married, as if they’d talked it over beforehand – young people don’t give much notice, do they? There I was, feeling pleased that Fumiko had kindly removed herself, and wasn’t the Inamura girl married too? And the way she did it. She might as well have slapped me in the face. Well, it’s all because of your indecisiveness.’

Kikuji had trouble believing that Fumiko was married.

‘Did Mrs Ota succeed in ruining your marriage after all, even if she had to die to do it? But maybe the witch will leave us, now that Fumiko is married.’ Chikako looked out toward the garden. ‘Suppose you settle down, and give the trees a good pruning. Even in the dark I can see how you’ve let them grow. The gloomiest garden I’ve ever been in.’

Kikuji had not called a gardener in the four years since his father’s death. He had indeed let the garden grow. There was a dank smell from it that brought back the full heat of the day.

‘And I suppose the maid does nothing about sprinkling. You might mention that, at least.’

‘I’m not sure it’s your business.’

But though he scowled fiercely at each remark, he let her talk on. So it was whenever he saw her.

Even while she was annoying him, she was seeking to ingratiate herself, and probing. He was used to the trick. He showed his displeasure openly, and he was on guard. Chikako knew all this and for the most part feigned ignorance. Occasionally she let him see how much she did know.

Even while she was annoying him, she rarely said things that startled by their incongruity. Everything went with the self-loathing that had become a part of Kikuji’s nature.

Tonight she was probing to see how he had reacted to her news. He was on guard – what could be her reason? She had sought to marry him to Yukiko and to drive Fumiko away; and, although it was hardly her place to wonder how he might feel now, she went on digging into the shadows.

He thought of turning on the lights in the room and at the veranda. It was strange to be here in the dark with Chikako. They were hardly that intimate. She gave him advice about the garden, and he dismissed it as the sort of thing she did. Yet it seemed a nuisance to get up and turn on the lights.

And Chikako, though she had spoken of the darkness the moment she came in, made no motion toward getting up. It was her habit, and indeed her art, to be of service; but Kikuji could see that her ardor in serving him had dimmed. Perhaps she was getting old. Perhaps, again, she had her dignity as a mistress of tea.

‘I’m just passing on a message from Oizumi in Kyoto,’ she said nonchalantly, ‘but if you ever decide to sell your father’s collection he’d like to manage the sale. If you mean to pull yourself together and start a new life now that Yukiko has run away, I don’t suppose you’ll be in a mood for tea. It makes me a little sad
to give up work I had when your father was alive, but I suppose the tea cottage gets only the airings I give it.’

Well, well – Kikuji saw everything.

Her aims were only too clear. Having failed to arrange the marriage with Yukiko, she would see no more of Kikuji, and, as her farewell, she would form a partnership with Oizumi to take over the collection. She had discussed the terms in Kyoto.

Kikuji felt less angry than relieved.

‘I’m thinking of selling the house too. I may well call on you one of these days.’

‘We can feel safe with someone who’s been in and out of the house since your father’s time.’

Kikuji suspected that she knew better than he what was in the collection. Possibly she had already calculated the profits.

He looked out toward the cottage. In front of it there was a large oleander, heavy with blossoms, a vague white blur. For the rest, the night was so dark that he had trouble following the line between trees and sky.

2

About to leave his office one evening, Kikuji was called back to the telephone.

‘This is Fumiko.’ He heard a very small voice.

‘Hello.’

‘This is Fumiko.’

‘Oh yes, I recognized you.’

‘I ought to see you in person, but there’s something I must apologize for. If I don’t telephone it will be too late.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I mailed a letter yesterday, and I seem to have forgotten the stamp.’

‘Oh? It hasn’t come yet.’

‘I bought ten stamps when I mailed it, and I still had ten when I got home. I must have been thinking of something else. I wanted to apologize before you got the letter.’

‘Is that all? Really, you shouldn’t worry.’ Kikuji wondered if the letter was to tell of her marriage. ‘It calls for congratulations?’

‘I beg your pardon? We’ve always talked over the telephone and this is the first time I’ve written. I must have forgotten the stamp while I was wondering whether to mail it.’

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘A public telephone. Tokyo Central Station. Someone is waiting for the booth.’

‘A public telephone?’ Kikuji was not quite satisfied. ‘Congratulations.’

‘What? Thank you. I did finally – but how did you know?’

‘Kurimoto told me.’

‘Miss Kurimoto? How could she know? What a frightening person.’

‘I don’t suppose you see Kurimoto any more. The last time – remember? – I heard rain over the telephone.’

‘So you said. I had just moved, and I was wondering whether to tell you. This time it’s the same.’

‘You should have told me. Ever since I had it from Kurimoto I’ve been wondering whether I should congratulate you.’

‘And I just disappeared? It’s a little sad, isn’t it? One of the missing.’ Her voice, trailing off, was like her mother’s.

Kikuji fell silent.

‘But I have to be one of the missing.’ There was a pause. ‘It’s a dirty little room. I found it when I found work.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It wasn’t easy, beginning work in the hottest part of the year.’

‘I’d imagine not. And newly married too.’

‘Married? Did you say married?’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Me? Married?’

‘You
are
married, aren’t you?’

‘Me?’

‘Didn’t you get married?’

‘No, no! Could I possibly? With Mother just dead?’

‘I see.’

‘Miss Kurimoto said I was married?’

‘She did.’

‘Why? Why did she say it? And did you believe it?’ The question seemed to be directed half at Fumiko herself.

‘It’s no good over the telephone.’ Kikuji spoke with decision. ‘Can’t I see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll go to Tokyo Central. Wait for me there.’

‘But …’

‘Is there somewhere you’d rather meet?’

‘I don’t like meeting people in strange places. I’ll go to your house.’

‘Shall we go together?’

‘That would mean meeting somewhere.’

‘Can’t you come here?’

‘No. I’ll go to your house by myself.’

‘Oh? Well, I’m leaving now. If you get there first go on inside.’