Transcription
Chapter 5
The entertainers were carrying the same luggage they had hauled through a Magi Pass. The puppy rested his paws on the woman's arm, looking like a seasoned traveler. Just outside Eugeno, we found ourselves again in the mountains. The sun, hanging over the sea, warmed the slopes. We gazed toward the morning sun.
Kawasu Beach spread wide in the sunlight, out where the Kawasu River flowed. "That's Oshima over there, isn't it?" I said. "Of course it is. See how big it looks?" "Please do comb," the dancing girl said. Perhaps the autumn sky was too dazzling. The sea near the sun looked misted over, as it is in the spring.
It was another 12-mile walk from there to Shimoda. For a while, the ocean was blocked from view. Chiyoko began to sing a carefree song. Along the way, I was asked whether I preferred to take the main road, which was easier, or a steep path over the mountains that was well over a mile shorter. Naturally, I chose the shortcut.
It was an abrupt climb through the trees. I feared we would slip on the fallen leaves. I got so winded that, half in desperation, I pressed down on my knees with the palms of my hands to pick up my pace. Every time I glanced back, the others had fallen farther behind until I could only hear their voices among the trees. Except for the dancing girl, who was holding up her skirts and trudging along behind me. She was trailing by about two yards, neither trying to close the distance between us nor dropping farther back.
When I turned and spoke to her, she paused as if startled, then smiled and replied. When she spoke to me, I waited to give her a chance to catch up, but I should have known that she would stop short and refuse to take a step until I did. When the path twisted and grew even steeper, I quickened my pace again and found the dancing girl climbing intently, as always, just a couple of yards behind me. The mountains were still. The rest of the group was so far behind I could no longer hear them talking.
"Where is your house in Tokyo?" "My home isn't Tokyo. I live in the school dormitory there." "I know about Tokyo. I went there to dance during the cherry blossom season. I was little then, so I don't remember anything about it." Then she went on, "Do you have a father? Have you ever been to Kofu?" she asked all kinds of questions. We talked about going to see a movie when we got to Shimoda, and again about the dead baby.
We emerged at the mountaintop. The dancing girl placed her drum on a bench in the dry grass and wiped the perspiration from her face with a handkerchief. She started to brush the dust from her legs, then suddenly crouched at my feet and began to brush the hem of my hakama. I jerked away, and she dropped to her knees with a thud. She brushed the dust all the way around my kimono, then dropped the hem. "For him," I stood there breathing deeply. "Down," she said. A flock of small birds appeared beside the bench. It was so still I could hear the dry leaves on the branches rustle when they alighted.
"Why do you walk so fast?" she looked flushed. I thumped the drum with my fingers, and the birds flew away. "I'm thirsty," I said. "I'll go see if I can find some water." But shortly, the girl came back empty-handed through the grove of yellow trees.
"What do you do on Oshima?" The dancing girl mentioned two or three girls' names and began talking about something I could not follow. She seemed to be describing Kofu, not Oshima. Apparently, the names were her friends at the elementary school she had attended until second grade. The dancing girl just rambled on.
We had waited about 10 minutes when the three younger people reached the toll. The older woman arrived another 10 minutes after them. On the way down, Ekichi and I purposely hung back, talking at leisure. When we had walked about 200 yards, the dancing girl came back up from below. "There's a spring further down," they said. "You should hurry down. They're waiting until you get there to take a drink." When I heard they had found water, I ran.
Fresh water sprang from between some large rocks in the shade of the trees. The girl stood waiting around the spring. "Please, you go first," the woman said. "The water will get all cloudy if we put our hands in." "You'd think it was too dirty." After us women, I scooped up the cold water in my hands and drank. The women lingered. They wrung out some damp hand towels and wiped themselves.
When we rejoined the Shimoda highway at the foot of the mountain, we saw several threads of smoke from charcoal-burning huts. We sat down to rest on some timber stacked by the roadside. The dancing girl crouched on the road, combing the puppy's shaggy fur with her pink comb. "The teeth will break," the woman warned her. "It's okay. I'll get a new one in Shimoda." Ever since I stayed in Eugeno, I had been hoping to be given the comb she wore in the front of her hair as a memento, so I did not want her using it on the dog either.
Ekichi and I spotted bundles of thin bamboo piled by the roadside, remarking that it would be perfect for walking sticks. We reached them ahead of the others, following on our heels. The dancing girl located a thick piece, taller than she was. "What are you going to do with it?" Ekichi asked. She seemed puzzled for a moment, then held it out to me. "Here, it's a walking stick." I pulled out the thickest one. "You can't do that. If someone sees him with the thickest one, they'll know we stole it. We don't want to get caught. Put it back," Ekichi said.
The dancing girl returned the bamboo pole and caught up with us. This time, she handed me a piece of bamboo about the size of my middle finger. Then she threw herself flat on her back on the path between the rice paddies beside the road, breathing heavily. She waited for the other women. Ekichi and I walked together as before, this time 10 or 12 yards ahead.
"It wouldn't be hard to pull them and replace them with gold teeth." I turned around when I overheard the dancing girl's voice. She was walking with Chiyoko. The older woman and Utica were a short distance behind them. The dancing girl did not appear to notice me looking back. I heard Chiyoko reply, "That's right. Why don't you tell him?" I gathered they were talking about me. Chiyoko had probably commented that my teeth were crooked, so the dancing girl had suggested gold teeth. They were discussing my looks, yet it did not bother me. I felt so close to them that I did not even care to eavesdrop.
They continued their conversation for a time, then I caught the dancing girl's voice again. "A nice person." "You're right. He seems like a nice person." "He really is nice. It's good to have such a nice person around." This exchange had an echo of simplicity and frankness. Hers was a child's voice, expressing her sentiments without censure. I too was able to meekly consider myself a nice person. Refreshed, I lifted my eyes and surveyed the brilliant mountains.
I felt a vague pain behind my eyelids. 20 years old, I had embarked on this trip to Izu, heavy with resentment that my personality had been permanently warped by my orphan's complex and that I would never be able to overcome a stifling melancholy. So I was inexpressibly grateful to find that I looked like a nice person, as the world defines the word. The mountains looked bright because we were by the ocean near Shimoda. I swung my bamboo walking stick back and forth, lopping off the heads of the autumn grasses here and there along the waisted signs as we entered villages.
"Beggars and itinerant entertainers keep out."