Masatsugu Ono - Lion Cross Point

Hii-chan prodded Takeru’s cheek. Takeru didn’t know if he was fatter or not. Perhaps he was.

“You stay here long as ya like,” said Hii-chan. “It’ll be ’kay.”

Okay. Okay. Takeru heard Bunji’s voice too. He couldn’t say where it came from.

Takeru tried to imagine himself staying here until the turtles came back to lay their eggs again. He couldn’t really picture it. But despite that… no, probably because of it, he felt he’d be happy enough staying.

It was the day before their trip to Dolphin Village. They’d originally planned to go sooner, but there had been a series of early typhoons and the road along the coast had been closed because of a landslide.

Takeru heard the sound of a door slamming from across the field. He looked up. Saki was walking sleepily along the path, rubbing her eyes.

“Mornin’!” she shouted. “Did ya yell for me?”

“Yes! We’ve got some watermelon. Hurry up!”

Saki joined Takeru on the veranda and polished off two pieces of the watermelon. Then, without any particular plan, they decided to go out.

“It’s hot, Saki,” said Mitsuko as they were leaving. “You’ll have t’wear a hat, like Takeru.”

“’kay.”

“Look—here’s the one ya left behind yesterday,” Mitsuko said.

It was a straw hat with a ribbon. She placed it on Saki’s head.

“You should be careful not t’forget things.”

“Sorry! Thank ya.”

Takeru had decided they should go to the temple first.

“What? Again?” said Saki.

“Why not?” Takeru said, walking quickly ahead.

The garden in front of the main building of the temple was entirely free of weeds and meticulously swept. The black earth bore the neat lines of a bamboo rake, deterring deviation from the pathway. The noise of the cicadas was so unrelenting it could almost be ignored. It was like a curtain of sound on top of which the birds drew clear patterns of song. The humid air clung to Takeru’s body like an extra layer of skin. He felt as if he could have pinched it between his fingers and pulled it away.

He couldn’t remember his mother’s face; but he remembered the old woman in the supermarket in Akeroma—her skin, brown-stained and loose, as though hanging directly off her bones.

The sticky, clinging air protected Takeru from reality. Or distanced him from it. Perhaps those are the same thing in the end.

Okay. Okay.

Bunji wasn’t visible through the thick film of heat shimmering in the air.

Takeru looked up. A thin white trail of clouds prevented the blue of the sky from penetrating his eyes. Bare blue sky frightened him, as if his mind might be sucked into its depths.

The birds sang louder, and for a moment the membrane of heat seemed about to burst. The surface of the air rose and fell, as though it were breathing. But the world was with Takeru like it always was, or perhaps it was showing a calmer, friendlier face than normal. The light, softened by white clouds, was smiling down on everything that remained in the world. All things had been accepted. Did his mother hate this scenery in spite of this? Did she want to get away as soon as possible, in spite of this? He heard kittens mewing somewhere. The somewhere was within him—as if he were a bag and the kittens were closed up inside. But that didn’t trouble him. He felt good, and not just from running up the stone steps. Everything was forgiven. He may or may not have formed that thought in words. But what enveloped him—the clinging heat; the peaceful-looking sky; the soft light; the birdsong—it expanded his being, generous and wide. Takeru’s mind normally shrank when he thought of his mother and brother—the kittens in the tightly sealed bag crying for help, cries that might never leave his ears—but now his mind was growing, swelling out, so that, though still heartrending, the kittens’ cries were now further off. But they were still inside, there was no difference there. What am I thinking? What have the kittens done to be tied up in a bag? What have I done? Tell me. Tell me.

“What’re you doin’, Takeru?”

Saki had been walking up the path to the graveyard behind the temple, but had retraced her steps to where Takeru was standing in front of the main building, his palms pressed together in front of his face.

“Praying,” replied Takeru.

“Look up there!” said Saki, her voice suddenly loud.

She was pointing up the hill. Takeru could see nothing special among the rows of graves.

“Not there. Farther up! Look!”

Takeru looked higher. On the boundary between the graveyard and the woods beyond was a small figure sitting on a large branch in a tree. It was hunched over like an old woman.

Takeru immediately looked away.

“Bunji?” he murmured. What made him think that?

“What’d you say?” asked Saki, her voice low now too.

“Nothing… It’s a monkey,” he said, putting into words what his eyes saw.

“Yeah,” said Saki, looking at the ground. “Make sure you don’t catch its eye.”

Takeru looked down too. He reacted more to the fear in her breath than the words themselves. If you catch a monkey’s eye it might bite you.

“It’s drunk,” he said.

It seemed funny once he’d said it. All Japanese monkeys have red faces, but according to Hii-chan’s personal theory of evolution the red faces of the monkeys here came from drinking the liquor that people left at their loved ones’ graves.

Saki tried to nod, but her chin was already against her chest. All they had to do was avoid the monkey’s gaze, but the children were so nervous that their eyes were glued to the ground and they didn’t even look at each other. Then, as though prearranged, they simultaneously turned their heads. They tried to make the movement look casual, as if they were tracking some troublesome mosquito. Once their heads were turned, they rotated their bodies as well until they had their backs to the graveyard, and to the monkey beyond it.

The path they were standing on had been cemented by the head priest, an avid do-it-yourselfer. Older villagers on their daily visits to the graveyard did not let themselves be deterred by wet concrete, so the path, far from smooth anyway, was peppered with footprints. Hii-chan had mentioned that there were also prints left by deer and boar. Takeru wondered if Bunji’s footprints might be there too. He scoured the surface. “What kind of footprints are those?” he said, pointing. “A monkey’s,” laughed Saki, not bothering to take a closer look. There were piles of weeds on the side of the path, pulled up by the old folks visiting the graves. In some places the weeds had been snapped off, rather than pulled up completely. They’d soon grow again, their leaves spreading and waving in the wind. Perhaps the old folks left the roots in so they could have a reason to come back more often.

From the graveyard there was quite a clear view of the head priest’s house, only partially obstructed by a clump of bamboo grass. They could see the priest’s daughter-in-law hanging out laundry in the garden. On one pole was a sheet billowing gently in the wind. On another were pieces of toweling.

“What are those?” asked Takeru.

“Diapers, of course,” said Saki, like she was amazed by his ignorance.

“Oh.”

“Cloth diapers like those’re a real luxury. There’s so much laundry t’do.”

“Oh.”

Takeru remembered that his brother had worn disposable diapers for a long time. It had been odd having his older brother wear diapers when he himself no longer had to.

“Paper must be easier,” he said.

“Cloth’s better for the environment,” said Saki.

“Oh. Still, it must be a real pain doing all that laundry,” he said.