Thousand Cranes (5 page)

As he looked into the deep shadow of the pomegranate, he thought again of Chikako’s birthmark. He shook his head. The last of the evening sunlight shone on the garden stones below the parlor.

The doors were open, and the girl was near the veranda.

Her brightness seemed to light the far corners of the large, dusky room.

There were Japanese irises in the alcove.

There were Siberian irises on the girl’s obi. Perhaps it was coincidence. But irises were most ordinary flowers for the season, and perhaps she had planned the combination.

The Japanese irises sent their blossoms and leaves high into the air. One knew that Chikako had arranged them a short time before.

2

The next day, Sunday, was rainy.

In the afternoon, Kikuji went alone to the tea cottage, to put away the utensils they had used.

And he went too in search of the fragrance of the Inamura girl.

He had the maid bring an umbrella, and as he stepped down into the garden he noticed that there was a leak in the rain gutter on the eaves. A stream of water fell just in front of the pomegranate tree.

‘We’ll have to have that repaired,’ he said to the maid.

‘Yes, sir.’

Kikuji remembered that for some time the sound of falling water had bothered him on rainy nights.

‘But once we start making repairs, there’ll be no end to them. I ought to sell the place before it falls apart.’

‘People with big houses all seem to be saying that. The young lady yesterday was very surprised at the size of this house. She spoke as if she might live here some day.’

The maid was telling him not to sell it.

‘Miss Kurimoto mentioned the possibility?’

‘Yes, sir. And when the young lady came, Miss Kurimoto seems to have shown her through the house.’

‘What will she do next!’

The girl had said nothing to Kikuji of having seen the house.

He thought she had gone only from the sitting room to the tea cottage, and now he wanted to go from the sitting room to the cottage himself.

He had not slept the night before.

He had felt that the scent of the girl would still be in the cottage, and he had wanted to go out in the middle of the night.

She will always be far away, he had thought, trying to make himself sleep.

He had not suspected that Chikako had marched her through the house.

Ordering the maid to bring charcoal embers, he went out over the stepping stones.

Chikako, who lived in Kamakura, had left with the Inamura girl. The maid had cleaned the cottage.

Kikuji’s only duty was to put away the utensils piled in one corner. But he was not sure where they all belonged.

‘Kurimoto would know,’ he muttered to himself, looking at the picture in the alcove. It was a small Sōtatsu
¹
wash in light ink, delicately colored.

‘Who is the poet?’ the Inamura girl had asked the evening before, and Kikuji had not been able to answer.

‘I wouldn’t know, I’m afraid, without a poem. In this sort of portrait, every poet looks exactly like every other poet,’ he said.

‘It will be Muneyuki,’
²
said Chikako. ‘“Forever green, the pines are yet greener in the spring.” The painting is already a little out of season, but your father was very fond of it. He used to take it out in the spring.’

‘But from the picture it could be Tsurayuki
³
just as well as Muneyuki,’ Kikuji objected.

Even today, he could find nothing distinctive about the vague figure.

But there was power, a suggestion of mass and weight, in the few quick lines. Looking at it for a time, he seemed to catch a faint perfume, something clean and clear.

The painting and the irises in the sitting room brought back the Inamura girl.

‘I’m sorry to have taken so long. I thought it would be best to let the water boil a little while.’ The maid came with charcoal and a tea kettle.

Because the cottage was damp, Kikuji had meant to warm it. He had not thought of making tea.

The maid, however, had used her imagination.

Kikuji absent-mindedly arranged the charcoal and put on the kettle.

Keeping his father company, he had often been through the tea ceremony. He had never been tempted to take up the hobby himself, however, and his father had never pressed him.

Even with the water boiling, he only pushed the lid open a little and sat staring at it.

There was a smell of mildew. The mats too seemed to be damp.

The deep, subdued color of the walls had brought the figure of the Inamura girl out to even better effect than usual; but today they were only dark.

There had been a certain incongruity, as when someone living in a European house wears a kimono. Kikuji had said to the girl: ‘It must have upset you, being called out by Kurimoto. And it was Kurimoto’s idea to bring us out here.’

‘Miss Kurimoto says that this is the day of your father’s tea ceremony.’

‘So it would seem. I had forgotten about it myself.’

‘Do you suppose she’s being funny, inviting someone like me on a day like this? I haven’t been practicing, I’m afraid.’

‘But I gather that Kurimoto herself only remembered this morning, and came to clean the cottage. Smell the mildew?’ He half swallowed the next words: ‘If we are to be friends, I can’t help thinking we would have done better to have someone besides Kurimoto introduce us. I should apologize to you.’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why? If it hadn’t been for Miss Kurimoto, who could have introduced us?’

It was a simple protest, and yet very much to the point.

If it had not been for Chikako, the two would not have met in this world.

Kikuji felt as if a glittering whip had lashed at him.

The girl’s way of speaking suggested that his proposal was accepted. So it seemed to Kikuji.

The strangely suspicious look in her eyes therefore came blazing at him.

How did she take it when he dismissed Chikako as ‘Kurimoto’? Did she know that Chikako had been his father’s woman, though for but a short time?

‘I have bad memories of Kurimoto.’ Kikuji’s voice was near trembling. ‘I don’t want that woman’s destinies to touch mine at any point. It’s hard to believe that she introduced us.’

Having served the others, Chikako came with a tray for herself. The conversation broke off.

‘I hope you won’t mind if I join you.’ Chikako sat down. Bending slightly forward, as though to recover her breath from having been up and at work, she looked into the girl’s face. ‘It’s a little lonely, being an only guest. But I’m sure Kikuji’s father is happy too.’

Unaffectedly, the girl looked at the floor. ‘I’m hardly qualified to be in Mr Mitani’s cottage.’

Chikako ignored the remark and talked on, as memories came to her, of Kikuji’s father and the cottage.

Apparently she thought the marriage already arranged.

‘Suppose you visit Miss Inamura’s house sometime, Kikuji,’ she said as the two left. ‘We’ll see about making an appointment.’ The girl only looked at the floor. She evidently wanted to say something, but the words would not come. A sort of primeval shyness came over her.

The shyness was a surprise to Kikuji. It flowed to him like the warmth of her body.

And yet he felt that he was wrapped in a dark, dirty, suffocating curtain.

Even today he could not throw it off.

The dirtiness was not only in Chikako, who had introduced them. It was in Kikuji too.

He could see his father biting at her birthmark with dirty teeth. The figure of his father became the figure of Kikuji himself.

The girl did not share his distrust of Chikako. This was not the only reason for his own irresolution, but it seemed to be one reason.

While Kikuji was indicating his dislike for Chikako, he was making it seem that she was forcing the marriage through. She was a woman who could so be used.

Wondering whether the girl had sensed all this, Kikuji again felt the lash of that whip. He saw himself, the figure at which it struck, and he was repelled.

When they had finished dinner, Chikako went to prepare the tea utensils. ‘So it’s our fate, is it, to have Kurimoto managing us,’ said Kikuji. ‘You and I do not seem to have the same view of that fate.’ The remark, however, sounded like an attempt to vindicate himself.

After his father’s death, Kikuji had not liked to see his mother go into the cottage alone. His father and his mother and Kikuji himself, he saw now, had had each his own separate thoughts in the cottage.

Rain spattered against the leaves.

With the rain on the leaves came the sound of rain on an umbrella. The maid called through the closed door. He gathered that someone named Ota had come.

‘The young lady?’

‘No, sir, the mother. She’s terribly thin. I wonder if she’s been ill.’

Kikuji quickly got up. He only stood there, however.

‘Where shall I take her?’

‘The cottage here will do.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Mrs Ota did not have an umbrella. Perhaps she had left it in the main house.

He thought that rain had struck her face; but it was tears.

He knew that it was tears from the steady flow over the cheeks.

And he had thought they were raindrops – that was the measure of his heedlessness. ‘What’s the matter?’ he almost shouted as he came up to her.

Mrs Ota knelt on the veranda with both hands on the floor before her.

She sank down softly, facing Kikuji.

Drop by drop the veranda near the lintel was wet.

The tears fell steadily, and Kikuji again wondered if they might be raindrops.

Mrs Ota did not turn her eyes from him. The gaze seemed to keep her from falling. Kikuji too felt that she would be in danger if her eyes were to leave him.

There were hollows and small wrinkles around the eyes, and dark spots below. The fold of the eyelids was emphasized in a strangely morbid way, and the pleading eyes glowed with tears. He felt an indescribable softness in them.

‘I’m sorry. I wanted to see you, and I couldn’t stay away,’ she said quietly.

There was softness in the figure too.

She was so thin that he could hardly have borne to look at her if it had not been for the softness.

Her suffering pierced him through. Although he was the cause of the suffering, he had the illusion that in the softness his own suffering was lightened.

‘You’ll get wet. Come inside.’ Kikuji suddenly took her in a deep, almost cruel embrace from back to breast, and pulled her to her feet.

She tried to stand by herself. ‘Let me go, let me go. See how light I am.’

‘Very light.’

‘I’m so light. I’ve lost weight.’

Kikuji was a little surprised at himself, abruptly taking the woman in his arms.

‘Won’t your daughter be worried?’

‘Fumiko?’

‘Is she with you?’ She had called out as though the girl were near by.

‘I didn’t tell her I was coming.’ The words were little sobs. ‘She won’t take her eyes off me. At night she is awake if I make the slightest move. She’s been strange herself lately, thanks to me.’ Mrs Ota was now kneeling upright. ‘She asked me why I had only one child. She said I should have had a child by Mr Mitani. She says such dreadful things.’

Kikuji sensed from Mrs Ota’s words how deep the girl’s sadness must be.

He could not feel it as the mother’s sadness. It was Fumiko’s.

The fact that Fumiko had spoken of his father’s child pierced him like a spear.

Mrs Ota was still gazing at him. ‘Maybe she’ll even come after me today. I slipped out while she was away. It’s raining, and she thought I wouldn’t leave.’

‘Because of the rain?’

‘She seems to think I’m too weak now to go out in the rain.’

Kikuji only nodded.

‘Fumiko came to see you the other day?’

‘I did see her. She said I must forgive you, and I couldn’t think of an answer.’

‘I know how she feels. Why have I come, then? The things I do!’

‘But I’ve felt grateful to you.’

‘It’s good to hear you say that. It’s quite enough, just that. But I’ve been very unhappy. You must forgive me.’

‘What is there to make you feel guilty? Nothing at all, I should think. Or maybe my father’s ghost.’

The woman’s expression did not change. Kikuji felt as if he had clutched at air.

‘Let’s forget everything,’ said Mrs Ota. ‘I’m ashamed of myself. Why should I have been so upset at a call from Miss Kurimoto?’

‘Kurimoto telephoned you?’

‘Yes. This morning. She said that everything was settled between you and Mrs Inamura’s Yukiko. I wonder why she had to tell me.’

Her eyes were moist, but she suddenly smiled. It was not the smile of one weeping. It was a simple, artless smile.

‘Nothing at all is settled,’ he answered. ‘Do you suppose Kurimoto has guessed about us? Have you seen her since?’

‘No. But she’s a person you have to be careful with, and she may know. I must have sounded strange when she telephoned this morning. I’m no good at pretending. I almost fainted, and I suppose I screamed at her. She could tell, I know she could, even over the telephone. She ordered me not to interfere.’

Kikuji frowned. He had nothing to say.

‘Not to interfere – why, I’ve only thought of the harm I’ve done Yukiko. But since this morning I’ve been frightened at Miss Kurimoto. I couldn’t stay in the house.’ Her shoulders quivered as if she were possessed. Her mouth was twisted to one side, and some outside force seemed to pull it upward. All the unsightliness of her years came to the surface.

Kikuji stood up and laid a hand on her shoulder.

She clutched at the hand.

‘I’m frightened, frightened.’ She looked around the room and shrank away, and suddenly her strength left her.

‘In this cottage?’

Confused, Kikuji wondered what she might mean. ‘Yes,’ he answered vaguely.

‘It’s a very nice cottage.’

Did she remember that her dead husband had occasionally had tea here? Or was she remembering Kikuji’s father?