[ 170 ]
IT APPEARED that even here on the narrow gauge, Tsuda was not to be left in peace by this aging optimist. What would he find when he arrived at his destination? What attitude would he adopt in accordance with the circumstances? As considerations like these faded in and out of the scenes he conjured in his imagination—the inn, the surrounding mountains, whitewater streams—the elder roused him, rapping smartly at the door to his reveries.
“They’re still making do with a temporary bridge; you’d think they didn’t have a care in the world. Even so, them laborers are scrambling down there.”
When the elder had finished cursing the fact, implying that the railroad’s negligence was at fault, that the real bridge had yet to be replaced after a flood had washed it away a year ago, he called Tsuda’s attention to a newly constructed house at the mouth of a river that flowed into the sea.
“That house was washed away, too, but somebody didn’t waste no time rebuilding it. Put the railroad to shame.”
“They probably don’t want to lose this year’s summer guests.”
“Closed for the summer in these parts will set you back some, that’s for certain. Without greed it seems that nothing gets done in much of a rush. It’s the same with this narrow gauge; one way or another they’re making do with a temporary bridge so the company jumps on its high horse and won’t replace it.”
Tsuda was left with no choice but to fall into step alongside the elder’s view of life, but during lulls in the conversation he closed his eyes as if dozing and abandoned himself to his own thoughts. A series of random, fragmented images paraded back and forth across his mind: the expression on O-Nobu’s face that morning; the Yoshikawas’ houseboy at the station; the basket of fruit he had carried onto the train. He was aware of an impulse to open the basket and share Madam’s gift with the two travelers. But he pictured vividly the effort the gesture would cost him and their insufferably overdone expressions of gratitude on accepting his generosity. Thereupon the elder and the fedora abruptly vanished and in their place a shadow-puppet image of plump Madam Yoshikawa marched into his imagination. From there at once he leaped to Kiyoko, the focal point at the center of his destination. In tandem with the train, his heart lurched forward.
The conveyance hyperbolically deemed a train clanked and rattled perilously up the steep grade of a mountainside that rose directly above the sea and then in a twinkling had nosed into the mountains and was ascending and descending on its way. The tangerines planted in terraces on most of the slopes spread a colored carpet of warm southern autumn beneath the beautiful sky.
“They look delicious.”
“They’re sour as lemons. They look much better from here.”
As it was winding its way up a steep slope, the train suddenly stopped. There was no station in sight, only some scrub trees whitened by a dusting of frost.
“What happened?”
As the old man thrust his head out the window, the conductor and the engineer alighted and began a tense exchange.
“She derailed!”
Hearing this, the old man looked quickly at Tsuda and the fedora facing him.
“Wha’d I tell you! I had me a feeling something would happen”
With these oracular words, as if he felt the time for him to babble was at hand, the old man began to indulge his garrulousness excitedly.
“In the event, I drank a farewell cup when I left home this morning, so it ain’t as if I wasn’t prepared for the worst, but Benkei’s last stand on this mountain ain’t what I had in mind. But I’ll tell you what, we could all be in our graves before they get around to hauling us out of here. The days are short and so is my patience; I can’t just sit here cooling my heels. How about we all get off and give this trash can a push?”
As he spoke, the elder rose spryly and jumped out of the train. The others, with forced, uncomfortable smiles, also stood up. Tsuda, who could hardly remain sitting in the train by himself, alighted with the others. Groaning, they threw their weight against the train while the women stood behind on the yellow-colored turf, eyes wide and mouths gaping.
“Too far! We went too far!”
The car was pulled back. Then pushed forward again. After pushing and pulling, the wheels were finally reseated on the tracks.
“We’re late again, General. With help.”
“Help from who?”
“From this old narrow gauge, who else? ’Course, without a little something like this to wake us up, we’d sleep through life.”
“We came all this way for nothing.”
“You mought say that.”
Concerned about the time, Tsuda took leave of the vigorous elder at the station where he had been told to get off and stepped alone into the twilight.
[ 171 ]
THE IMAGE of the village that coalesced nebulously, enfolded in something that was neither distinguishably mist nor the color of night, appeared to be altogether a desolate dream. Gazing into the darkness that extended vastly beyond the reach of the flickering lights nearby, Tsuda felt that he was standing unmistakably in a dream.
I seem to be following this unending dream where it leads me. Since before I left Tokyo, strictly speaking since before Madam Yoshikawa suggested coming to this hot springs, for that matter since before I married O-Nobu—No, it goes back even further; the truth is I’ve been haunted by this seeming dream from the minute Kiyoko turned away from me. And here I am, pursuing it. I can see in hindsight that I’ve been carrying this dream with me all this while, now I must wonder whether I’ll awaken from it the minute I reach my destination. Madam Yoshikawa thinks so. And since I’m on this journey because I agreed with her, I must share her opinion. But will that turn out to be a fact? Will my dream vanish without a trace? Can it be that I’m standing in the middle of this desolate village as insubstantial as a dream for no other reason than my certainty it will? The eaves so low they enter my vision, the narrow road that appears to have been paved with gravel only recently, the faint shadows cast by naked bulbs, the thatched roofs beginning to sag, the one-horse carriage with its yellow hood down, and, rendering this configuration that might be ancient or new the more dreamlike to me, the chill of the night in my bones and the darkness—might this blur of impressions symbolize the destiny I’ve brought with me all this way? A dream until now, the present a dream, what lies ahead a dream that I’ll take back with me to Tokyo. There’s no guarantee this whole affair won’t end that way. On the contrary, it very likely will! Then why did I set out from Tokyo in the rain and come all this way? Because I am, after all, a fool? If only that were clear, that I am a fool, I could turn back even from here—
This reflection occurred all at once. In just seconds the entire sequence with its own logic, the parts interlocked as though in an embrace, traversed his mind embedded in a reverie. But just seconds later he was no longer his own master. Out of nowhere a young man suddenly appeared and took his luggage. Before he knew it, the youth had dragged him into a tea shop on the street and in a brief space of busy time had ascertained, with a degree of charm Tsuda found surprising, at which inn he was booked and whether he preferred a rickshaw or a horse and carriage.
Shortly he was escorted to a carriage with the canvas hood lowered. He was surprised yet again to discover that the passenger who took a seat opposite him with a murmured “By your leave” was the same young man.
“You’re going, too?”
“If you wouldn’t mind—”
The young man turned out to be the hostler at Tsuda’s inn.
“We have our banner.”
Craning his neck, Tsuda glanced at the red banner thrust into a corner of the coachman’s seat. In the dark he couldn’t make out the crest. The banner flapped noisily in the wind created by the speed of the carriage, streaming back in Tsuda’s direction. He hunched his shoulders and raised the collar of his coat.
“The nights are getting a mite colder.”
As the hostler was sitting with his back to the
coachman’s platform and taking none of the wind in his face, the remark struck Tsuda as somehow impertinent.
He had the feeling there were paddies on both sides of the road. And he thought he could hear from time to time the sound of a stream running between the road and the paddies. He also sensed that the paddies were sharply hemmed in by mountains on both sides.
Baring to the wind only that portion of his face he was unable to cover between his hat and his overcoat, Tsuda fell silent and purposely closed his eyes as if he were bracing himself against the cold. The young man, apparently finding this easier himself, made no effort to break the silence.
All of a sudden, Tsuda felt a tremor in his heart.
“Are there lots of guests?”
“By your leave, quite a number.”
“About how many?”
The youth’s reply, which didn’t include a number, was, if anything, defensive.
“Right now, being it’s this time of year, we’re not so full. Around New Year’s and then again in summer, July and August anyway, that’s when we’re really busy. At times like that we have to turn guests away if they show up without a reservation.”
“So it’s slow just now?”
Yes—please stay as long as you like.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you staying with us because you’ve been ill?”
“You could say that.”
His purpose had been to inquire about Kiyoko, but having come this far he suddenly faltered. He felt embarrassed. He couldn’t bear to say her name. On top of that it occurred to him it might cause trouble later. Turning away from the young man and leaning back against the carriage seat, he closed his eyes again.
[ 172 ]
PRESENTLY THE carriage approached a large boulder darkly obstructing the road and had to veer sharply around its base. It appeared that the opposite bank of the river was also blocked by what might have a fragment of the same rock. The coachman, who had jumped down from his perch, took hold of the horse’s bridle.
On one side a large tree soared so high it blocked the sky. This giant, which, judging from the enormous shadow it cast in the moonlight, appeared to be an ancient pine, and the sound of a rapids that had become abruptly audible, induced in Tsuda, who had not been outside the city in a long while, an unexpected change in mood. It was as if a forgotten memory had been recalled.
So things like this always existed in the world; how can I have forgotten until now?
Unfortunately this moment of nostalgia did not arise and fade in isolation. An image of the woman he was on his way to meet promptly traced itself in his mind. Nearly a year had passed since they had separated, and in all that time he was not aware of having forgotten her for even a minute. And what was he doing now, swaying down a night road in this carriage, if not single-mindedly pursuing her shadow? The coachman, lamentably, as if he were afraid of running late, had been lashing the horse’s skinny rump with his intemperate whip for some time. How was he himself, Tsuda wondered, pursuing his memory of the woman he had lost, any different from this bony nag? And if this miserable animal snorting through his nose was himself, then who was applying a harsh whip? Madam Yoshikawa? No, that was too black and white. Was it himself, then? Preferring to avoid a precise conclusion, Tsuda tossed the question aside but was unable to avoid moving beyond it in his thoughts.
Why am I going to meet her? To remember her forever? But haven’t I remembered her until now without a meeting? To forget her, then? Maybe that’s it. But will I be able to forget her once we meet? Maybe, maybe not. Just now the color of the pines and the sound of the water put me in mind of mountains and valleys I had completely forgotten. How will I be affected by this woman I absolutely haven’t forgotten, the woman who dances in my imagination, the woman I’ve followed here from Tokyo?
In the chill mountain air, Tsuda felt his existence being swallowed up by the same color of night that was blurring the mountains mysteriously, and he was afraid. He felt horrified.
With his hand still on the horse’s bridle, the coachman made his way carefully across the bridge that spanned the rapids, dashing white foam against the rocks as they roared below. As they cleared the bridge, Tsuda made out a number of lights and assumed they had arrived. He even considered the possibility that one of those lights might even now be shining on Kiyoko.
Those lights are beacons. I have no choice but to follow them to my destiny.
Tsuda was hardly a poet; these words wouldn’t have come to him normally. But there was no other way of describing what he felt. He leaned forward toward the youth.
“It seems we’ve arrived. Which place is yours?”
“It’s just ahead.”
The road through the hot-springs village was so narrow the carriage could barely pass. Moreover, it wound and twisted through the village in an irregular way that seemed intentional and prevented the coachman, back on his seat, from using his whip. Even so, it took only five or six minutes to reach the inn. There wasn’t much to the village, not against the vastness of the mountains and valleys.
As the hostler had predicted, the inn was hushed. It wasn’t the lateness of the hour or the size of the building; this was a quietness that could be explained only by a virtual absence of guests, and when Tsuda had been shown to his own room he felt glad of the happy coincidence that had brought him here at just the right season. By natural inclination he would have chosen to be among people, but he had an agenda.
“Is it this way during the day?” he inquired of the maid facing him across his supper tray.
“Yes.”
“The place feels empty.”
The maid, referring to the “new wing,” “the annex,” and “the main building,” explained the silence.
“It’s that big? It seems you’d lose your way without a map.”
Tsuda had to ascertain Kiyoko’s whereabouts. But he was no more able to put a direct question to the maid than to be straightfor ward with the hostler.
“I suppose there aren’t many people who come alone? To a place like this.”
“Some do.”
“Men, I suppose. I can’t imagine a woman staying here by herself.”
“We have someone now.”
“You don’t say. Is she sick, I wonder?”
“She might be.”
“What’s her name?”
Because it wasn’t one of her rooms, the maid didn’t know.
“Is she young?”
“Oh, yes, and beautiful.”
“Is that so? I’d like to see for myself.”
“She passes by here on her way to the baths. You can see her anytime.”
“Excellent.”
When he had learned which direction the woman’s room was in, Tsuda had the maid take the tray away.
[ 173 ]
THINKING TO have a quick soak before he went to bed, he asked the maid to show him the way to the baths and realized only then that the size of the place was as she had described it. Turning down unexpected hallways and descending sudden flights of stairs, when he finally reached the tubs he wondered if he would be able to return to his room by himself.
The baths were partitioned by boards and glass doors into several areas; there were six small tubs, three on the left facing three on the right, and a large tub a little apart that was more than twice the size of a normal public bath.
“This here is the largest and the best,” the maid said, rattling open the door inset with frosted glass. There was no one inside. Possibly to prevent steam from accumulating, the transom was fitted with a glass shutter; the draft of night air entering through the half-opened space beneath the ceiling struck Tsuda’s body as he was removing his padded jacket and reminded him that he was in a mountain village.
“That’s cold.”
Tsuda jumped into the tub with a splash.
“Please take your time.”
About to close the door to the bath on her way out, the maid came back in.
“There’s another t
ub downstairs; you can also use that one if you like.”
Having descended one or two flights of steps on his way here, Tsuda had trouble imagining there could still be a downstairs.
“How many floors is this place?”
Smiling, the maid didn’t answer. But she didn’t hesitate to inform him what she thought he needed to know.
“Being this one is new, it’s nicer, but they say the springs downstairs is better for your health. Most of our guests who are really here for treatment go downstairs. And downstairs you can massage your shoulders and back under the falls.”
Submerged in the tub to his neck, Tsuda replied.
“Thanks. That’s where I’ll go from now on, so please take me there next time.”
“I will—is something ailing you?”
“A bit, yes.”
For some time after the maid had left, Tsuda was unable to forget what she had said, “our guests who are really here for treatment.”
Does that include me?
He wanted to think of himself that way, and then again he preferred not to. In his heart he was aware of his purpose in being here. But having come all this way through the rain, he perceived there was still bargaining room. There was hesitation. A certain latitude remained. It told him something.
This can still go either way. If you want to be a guest who’s serious about treatment, you can be. At this point, old boy, you’re still free to decide. And you’ll never tire of freedom. On the other hand, with freedom nothing ever gets resolved, which keeps you unsatisfied. Will you toss your freedom away, then? But when you’ve lost it, what will you be able to take firm hold of? Do you know? Your future has yet to reveal itself. What if it holds many times more wonder than the single skein of mystery in your past? You want to dispel that mystery in the past in order to secure the future that you want, and to achieve that you contemplate throwing away your freedom in the present—does that make you clever or a fool?
Tsuda couldn’t reach a conclusion either way. And the inevitable consequence of letting everything be determined by the outcome was that, in the moment when he began to question that outcome, he would have already bound himself helplessly hand and foot.