Transcription
Chapter 2. The Mountain Road
Stitched on one side with whitewashed pickets, the course down from the mouth of the tunnel like a jagged lightning bolt. The scene resembled a landscape in miniature. I can make out the itinerant entertainers down at the bottom. Before I'd walked half a mile, I overtook them. It would be too obvious where I had a slack on my pace too abruptly, so I nonchalantly passed.
The women. When the man, who was walking about 20 yards ahead of the others, noticed me, he paused. "You walk fast. We're lucky the weather cleared up," he said, relieved. I fell into step with the man. He asked me all kinds of questions. Seeing the two of us talking, the women scurried to join us.
The man was carrying a large wicker trunk on his back. The woman in her 40s was holding a puppy. The oldest girl was toting a cloth bundle. The middle girl also had a wicker trunk. Everyone carried something. The dancing girl had a drum and frame on her back.
Little by little, the woman who seemed to be in her 40s began to talk to me. "He's an upper school student," the oldest girl whispered to the dancing girl. When I looked around, she smiled. "That's right, isn't it? I know that much. Students are always coming down to the island." They were from the Harbor Town of Habu on Oshima, the largest island off the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula. They had been on the road since leaving the island in the spring, but it was turning cold, and they had not yet made preparations for winter. They said they were planning to stay in Shimoda for just 10 days, then cross over to the island from Beetle Hot Springs.
At the mention of Oshima, I felt even more the poetry of the situation. Again, I glanced at the dancing girl's lovely hair. I asked questions about Oshima. "A lot of students come to the island to swim, don't they?" the dancing girl said to the girl with her. I turned back toward them. "In the summer, right?" The dancing girl was flustered. "In the winter too?" I thought I heard her answer softly. "In the winter too?" I asked. The dancing girl simply looked at her companion and giggled. "You can swim in the winter too?" I asked again. The dancing girl blushed. She nodded with a serious look. "This girl is such a silly one," the older woman laughed.
The road to Yugano ran about eight miles down through the valley of the Kawasu River. On this side of the pass, even the mountains and the color of the sky began to look more Southern. As the man and I continued our conversation, we took a liking to each other. We passed tiny villages with names like Oginori and Nachimoto. About the time the thatched roofs of Eugeno came into view at the foot of the mountain, I ventured to tell the man that I wanted to travel with them to Shimoda. He seemed delighted.
When we arrived at a cheap lodging house in Huguenot, the older woman nodded as if to say goodbye, but the man spoke for me. "This young gentleman has kindly offered to accompany us. Well, well, as the old saying goes, on the road a traveling companion, and in the world, kindness. Even boring people like us will help you pass the time. Come on in and take a rest." She spoke without formality. The girls all glanced at me at the same time. They stopped talking, their faces seemingly indifferent. Then their gaze turned to embarrassment.
I went upstairs with them and put down my bag. The woven floor mats and sliding panel doors were old and dirty. The dancing girl brought us some tea from downstairs. Kneeling in front of me, she blushed bright red. Her hands were trembling. The teacup almost tumbled off the saucer. She set it down on the mat to keep it from falling, but spilled the whole cup of tea. I was amazed at her bashfulness. "My goodness, she started thinking about the opposite sex. How disgusting! Look at that!" the older woman furrowed her brow in dismay and threw a hand towel at the girl, who picked it up and wiped the mat, looking ill at ease.
Caught off guard by the woman's words, I reconsidered my feelings. The daydream that the old woman at the pass had sparked in me had been dashed. "The young student's indigo kimono certainly is nice," the woman remarked, her eyes fixed on me. "The pattern is the same as Tumiji's, isn't it? Isn't it the same?" After pressing the girl several times, she spoke to me. "We have another child at home, still in school. I was thinking of him. He has the same kind of kimono as yours. These days, indigo kimonos are so expensive. I just don't know what to do." "What kind of school?" "Elementary school, fifth grade." "Oh, you have a fifth grader? His school is not on Oshima, it's in Kofu. We've been on Oshima for a long time, but Kofu is our original home."
After we rested for an hour, the man led me to another hot spring. Until then, I had assumed I would be staying at the same lodging house of the entertainers. We walked about 100 yards along a gravel road and down some stone steps, then crossed a bridge near a public bath beside a stream. The garden of the inn was on the other side of the bridge. I stepped into the bath, and the man got in after me. He told me he was 24. His wife had lost two children, one by miscarriage and one that was born prematurely. I assumed he was from Nagaoka, since his jacket bore Nagaoka Hot Springs emblem. His intellectual manner of speaking and his facial expressions made me wonder if he had been following the entertainers and carrying their luggage simply out of curiosity, or perhaps because he had fallen in love with one of them.
I ate lunch as soon as I got out of the bath. I had left Yugoshima at eight o'clock in the morning, but it was not yet three o'clock now. As the man made his way to the inn-gate, he looked up at my window to say goodbye. "Buy yourself some persimmons or something." "I'm sorry this is such a rude way to give this to you." From the second floor, I tossed down a packet of money. The man refused it and turned to go, but he couldn't leave the money lying in the garden, so he returned and picked it up. "You shouldn't do things like this," he said, tossing the packet back up at me. It landed on the thatched roof. When I threw it down a second time, he took it with him.
Rain started pouring around sunset. The mountains turned colorless and lost their depth. The small stream in front of the inn ran yellow. As I watched it, the sound of rushing water grew louder. Thinking that the dancers would never come looking for customers in this torrent, I could not sit still, so I went to the bath two or three more times. My room was dismal. An electric light hung in the square hole cut in the wall between my room and the next, where it could illuminate both rooms.
In the distance, beyond the clamor of the rain, the vague reverberations of a drum rose. I shoved open one of the shutters and hung out the window. The drums seemed to be getting closer. The rain and wind lashed my head. Closing my eyes and straining to hear, I tried to determine the path of the drum that approached. A moment later, I heard the sound of a shamisen. I heard a woman's long scream. I heard boisterous laughter. I surmised that the entertainers had been called to the banquet room at the inn across from their own. I could distinguish two or three women's voices and three or four men's. I expected them to travel in my direction once the party broke up, but it seemed the party would pass the point of mere drinking and dissolve into riot. As nonsense, occasionally a woman's high, piercing voice rent the night like a thunderbolt. My nerves were on edge. I left the shutter open and just sat by the window. I felt some consolation every time I heard the drum. "Oh, the dancing girl is still at the party. She's playing the drum." I could not bear the silences. When the drum stopped, I sank down into the depths of the sound of the rain.
At length, I could hear the noise of confused footsteps. Were they playing tag or dancing in circles? Then all fell silent. I opened my eyes wide, trying to peer through the darkness. What was the stillness? I was tormented, wondering if the dancing girl's night might be sullied. I closed the shutters and crawled into bed, but my chest felt heavy. I went down again for a bath. I thrashed the water. The rain stopped, and the moon came out. The autumn night was bright, washed clean by the rain. I slipped out of the bathhouse barefoot, but I could not do anything. It was past two o'clock.