Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

“Now they can find their way back to us and not get lost,” she said without looking at him, her voice sounding even more caustic.

“It’s just superstition,” the man said.

“What’s wrong with superstition?” she retorted.

He looked away. As he put the cap back on the sake bottle, he glanced at the camera next to Yusuke’s backpack. Yusuke had taken it out when he was looking for his datebook and forgotten to put it away.

“That’s titanium, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Since I’m on vacation, I thought I’d use my camera for once. It’s been a while.”

The man picked up his full glass of sake.

The woman, eyes still cast down, told him that Yusuke worked as an editor on a literary journal.

“A literary journal?” he muttered. He then asked him an odd question. “One that publishes novels and things?”

“Well, yes.”

The man mentioned the name of a woman novelist and asked whether Yusuke knew her.

“I’ve heard of her.”

“She’s someone I used to know—many, many years back,” he said, and raised the glass to his lips. But he didn’t drink just yet, as if taking the time to recall the past he had just evoked. “A little while ago, I heard the ‘Tokyo Ballad’ going on and on in Sengen Shrine,” he murmured.

The woman remained silent and continued with her needlework, so it was left to Yusuke to acknowledge this.

“It reminded me of a time half a century ago,” the man said, looking at him.

“Half a century ago?”

“Well, actually about forty years ago. That was the first time I heard the song here.”

Yusuke, who had assumed that he was still in his late thirties, scrutinized him more closely.

“As I listened to it, I began thinking what a long life I’ve lived …” Gazing into his glass, he continued, “And then I find that we have a guest staying with us tonight. So I said to myself, maybe the time has come … I gave up drinking many years ago, you see, but tonight would be a perfect occasion to change my mind.”

Raising the glass in a toast, he took his first sip. Yusuke noticed that the woman looked up for an instant to watch. She had a peculiar look in her eyes that contained anger, sadness, and something unreadable. Although the man seemed to be speaking to him, Yusuke knew he was in fact addressing her.

“Let’s also make a toast to the dead,” the man said. While he slowly poured the sake down his throat, the woman kept at her needlework, eyes now fixed on the cotton garment.

“The moon is bright tonight,” he announced, to no one in particular, as he removed the glass from his lips. It was again left for Yusuke to respond.

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s a full one too.”

“Yes.”

“The sky is usually so cloudy around here that even when the moon is full, it’s rarely this bright.”

Yusuke was silent.

“I was looking out of my window with the light off and it was so bright out I was surprised. That’s when I realized there was a full moon.”

Yusuke wanted to know more about this man, but he found he was tongue-tied, almost frozen, in his presence. The man was merely making conversation, so perhaps it was the tone of his voice that made Yusuke feel he was being drawn downward, down into the bottom of the night.

As soon as Yusuke emptied his glass, the woman led him out to the shed. She had fallen completely silent. She seemed to be afraid that if she opened her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to hold in whatever it was that she was struggling to keep inside.

When they reached the shed, all she said was, “I hope you sleep well.” Then, forcing a smile, she disappeared.

THE SHED WAS small, about three tatami mats in size.

Against one wall were two built-in bunk beds. The bottom one was covered with a jumble of cardboard boxes, shovels, and raincoats, but a sleeping bag had been spread out on the top bunk. High on the same wall was a small window one could open and close; and from the center of the ceiling hung a bare lightbulb which the woman had switched on. It was a better setup than he’d expected. He climbed the ladder, sat himself down on the bed, and peered out of the window. The main cottage was a short distance away, with yellow light showing faintly through the curtains. It truly did look like the lonely hut in the folktale.

Yusuke sat for a while looking toward the yellow light.

The woman was probably crying somewhere inside there. No. More likely, she was arguing with him. Apparently, though, that hadn’t made her raise her voice, for, however intently he listened, all he could hear was the same chirping of the autumn insects. He felt the earth breathe heavily in the summer night, infusing the air with its warm scent.

Yusuke realized that several moths had flattened their powdery white wings against the windowpane, drawn to the light from the bulb. They seemed to be pleading to be let in. His nerves were still fragile: the sight was suffocating.

The white wings remained obstinately still.

He switched off the bare bulb and wriggled into the musty sleeping bag, the wooden bed frame creaking with every move. The tension in him would not go away. The man’s face kept reappearing, and Yusuke, puzzled and disturbed that he should be so bothered by someone he barely knew, tried to push the face away and replace it with scenes from his journey that day.

He saw again the sun-scorched lawn in Kaikoen Garden marking the site where an old castle once stood. There was also the deep green gorge he had looked down on from a small bridge, and Mount Asama, with its broad base, as he gazed up at it from Route 18. On his way back through Oiwake at dusk, he’d passed a rustic graveyard at the foot of the mountain, with some extravagant new granite tombstones in it, as well as humble older graves that were little more than piles of roadside stones: the graves of the unknown. Someone had placed fresh flowers even on those forsaken graves, this week being a special one for the spirits of the dead.

Paper lanterns for the Bon festival hung along both sides of Nakasendo, the old Edo-period highway, swaying in the evening breeze. More flamboyant lanterns, with colorful bulbs, shone from houses along the road where historic inns once stood. In some houses there were many of these lanterns, their twirling colors, blue and red and yellow, reflecting on sliding glass doors. A little farther on, in the grounds of Sengen Shrine, a ring of people wearing T-shirts and sneakers danced clumsily to the beat of the big taiko drum and music from loudspeakers. When he got tired of watching, he went into a ramen noodle shop for a bite to eat. There were piles of manga comics, their gaudy covers garish in the fluorescent light …

Not only were his nerves frazzled, but his wound, which hadn’t bothered him until then, started to throb. Even when he finally slept, he soon found himself half awake. And then that face came back again.

HOW LONG HAD he slept?

A gust of wind blew the shed door open.

The night was warm, yet a chill ran through his body. A ray of clear, bright moonlight shone at a sharp angle through the doorway. In that clear light stood a girl wearing a summer kimono. With her frizzy hair flaring out around her head, she stared up at Yusuke on the top bunk, her eyes wild, her tiny fist tightly clasping a round festival fan. The sounds of the “Tokyo Ballad” floated in from afar. Yusuke propped himself on his elbows, holding his breath, looking down at her. In a frenzied voice she shouted something at him, then fled away, her long sleeves fluttering in the air.

The door stood open, moonlight flowing in.

Motes of dust rose and danced in the air around the doorway, illuminated in the still, transparent rays. No more than a few seconds could have gone by—yet it felt longer, as if he were watching images projected in slow motion. In the slight stirring of the air, the moonlight seemed even more fixed, unmoving.