A Wild Sheep Chase (35 page)

I woke and went for my run in the pasture, showered, and ate breakfast. A morning like the others. The sky was overcast like the day before, but the temperature had risen a bit. Not much chance of snow.

Into jeans and a sweater and a jacket over that, then tennis shoes, and I was off across the pasture. Heading for the woods to the east where I’d seen the Sheep Man disappear, I made my way into the thicket. There was no real path to speak of, no sign of human life. Occasionally, there’d be an old birch toppled over.

The forest floor was flat, except for a long, yard-wide trough, like a dried-up streambed or an abandoned trench. The trough wound its way through the woods for miles. Sometimes sunken deep, sometimes shallow, ankle-deep in dead leaves.

The ditch gave on to a ridge trail, both sides of which sloped down to dry hollows. Plump birds shuffled across the path through the leaves, losing themselves in the undergrowth. Here and there, brush azaleas blazed bright red.

I walked around for an hour and lost all sense of direction. At this rate, I was hardly going to find the Sheep Man. I roamed the bottom of one dry hollow until I heard the sound of water. I sought out the river, then followed it downstream. If my memory served me correctly, there had to be a waterfall and near it, the road we’d walked up.

After another ten minutes, I came across the waterfall. Splashing as it struck the rocks in the gorge below, lapping into frozen pools. There was no sign of fish, though a few fallen leaves traced slow circles on the surface of the pools. I crossed from rock to rock, made my way down below the falls, then crawled up the slippery opposite bank. I had reached the road.

Seated on the edge of a bridge, watching me, was the Sheep Man. A big sailcloth bag of firewood was slung over his shoulder.

“Wanderaroundtoomuchyou’llbebearbait,” said the Sheep Man. “There’sboundtobeoneaboutinthesepartsyouknow.
Yesterdayafter noonIfoundtraces.
Ifyouhavetowalkaroundyououghttoputabellon yourhiplikeus.”

The Sheep Man shook a little bell fastened to his hip with a safety pin.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I said after catching my breath.

“Iknow,” said the Sheep Man. “I’veseenyousearching.”

“Well then, why didn’t you call out?”

“You’retheonewhowantedtosearchmeout. So I held back.”

The Sheep Man took a cigarette out of his pocket and smoked it with great pleasure. I sat down next to him.

“You live around here?”

“Hmm,” said the Sheep Man. “Butdon’ttellanybody.Nobody knows.”

“But my friend knows all about you.”

Silence.

“You know, it’s a very important matter.”

Silence.

“And if you’re friends with my friend, that makes us friends, no?”

“Iguessso,” said the Sheep Man cautiously. “Iguessitprobably does.”

“And if you’re my friend, you wouldn’t lie to me, would you? Think about it.”

“Errno,” answered one perplexed Sheep Man. He licked his parched lips. “Ican’ttellyouI’mrealsorryIcan’ttellyouIcan’t.I’mnot supposedto.”

“Someone’s put it to you to keep quiet?”

The Sheep Man clammed up. The wind whistled through the barren trees.

“Nobody’s around to hear,” I whispered.

The Sheep Man looked me in the eye. “Youdon’tknowathing aboutourwaysheredoyou?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Welllistenthisisnoordinaryplacewegothere.
Thatmuchyoushould keepinmind.”

“But just the other day you told me this was such nice country.”

“Forusyes,” said the Sheep Man. “Forusthisistheonlyplacetolive. Ifwewerechasedoutofherewe’dhavenoplacetogo.”

At that, the Sheep Man shut up. He would not say another word on the subject. I looked at his sailcloth bag filled with firewood.

“That your heating for the winter?”

The Sheep Man nodded silently.

“But I didn’t see any smoke.”

“Nofireyet.Nottillthesnowsetsin.Butevenafteritsnows
youwouldn’t beabletoseethesmokefromourfire.
Wegotaspecialwayofbuildingfires.” He grinned, self-satisfied.

“So when will the snow begin to pile up around here?”

The Sheep Man looked up at the sky, then looked at me. “The snow’llcomeearlythisyear.Maybeanothertendays.”

“In another ten days the road will freeze over?”

“Probably.Nobodycomingupandnobodygoingdown.
Wonderful timeofyear.”

“And you’ve been living here how long?”

“Longtime,” said the Sheep Man. “Reallongtime.”

“What do you eat?”

“Tubersshootsnutsbirdswhateverlittlefishandcrabs
Icancatch.”

“Don’t you get cold?”

“Winter’ssupposedtobecold.”

“If you need something, I’d be glad to share whatever I’ve got.”

“ThanksbutI’mfinejustnow.”

The Sheep Man suddenly stood up and started walking off in the direction of the pasture. So I got up to follow him.

“Why’d you take to hiding out up here?”

“You’dlaughifItoldyou,” said the Sheep Man.

“No, I wouldn’t laugh, I swear,” I said. I couldn’t imagine what there’d be to laugh about.

“Youwon’ttellanyone?”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Ididn’twanttogoofftowar.”

For the next few minutes, we walked on without a word between us.

“War with whom?” I asked.

“Dunno,” coughed out the Sheep Man. “ButIdidn’twanttogo. Anywaythat’swhyI’masheep.
Asheepwhostayswherehebelongsup here.”

“You from Junitaki-cho?”

“Uhhuhbutdon’ttellanyone.”

“I won’t,” I said. “You don’t like the town?”

“Thetowndownthere?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’tlikeitatall.Toofullofsoldiers,” the Sheep Man coughed again. “Whereyoufrom?”

“Tokyo.”

“Heardaboutthewar?”

“Nope.”

At that the Sheep Man seemed to lose all interest in me. He remained silent until we reached the entrance to the pasture.

“Care to stop by the house?” I asked the Sheep Man.

“Gottalayinwintersupplies,” he said. “Realbusy.Maybenext time.”

“I’d like to see my friend,” I said. “I’ve got something I have to see him about next week.”

The Sheep Man shook his head forlornly. His ears flapped. “Sorry butlikeIsaidbeforeit’snotuptous.”

“Well, then, pass the word on if you can.”

“Hmm,” said the Sheep Man.

“Thanks a lot,” I said. I turned to leave.

“Ifyougooutwalking,” the Sheep Man called out as he departed, “makesureyoudon’tforgetthebell.”

I headed straight back for the house as the Sheep Man disappeared into the woods to the east, the same as before. A winter-dark wordless green pasture stretched between us.

That afternoon I baked bread. The Rat’s
Bread Baking
proved to be a thoughtfully written cookbook. On the cover was written: “If you can read, then you can bake bread.” It was no exaggeration. The smell of bread filled the house, making it warm all over. For a fledgling effort, it didn’t taste too bad either. There was plenty of flour and yeast in the kitchen, enough for bread the whole winter long, if it turned out I had to stay. And more rice and spaghetti than I cared to think about.

That evening, I had bread and salad and ham and eggs, with canned peaches for dessert.

The next morning I cooked rice and made a pilaf of canned salmon and seaweed and mushrooms.

For lunch, it was cheesecake from the freezer and strong milk tea.

At snacktime, I treated myself to hazelnut ice cream topped with Cointreau.

In the evening, broiled chicken and a can of Campbell’s soup.

I was putting on weight again.

Early in the afternoon of the ninth day, as I was looking through the bookcase, I noticed one volume that seemed like it may have been read recently. It was the only one without dust on it, its spine protruding a bit farther out than the rest.

I pulled it out and sat on the chaise longue to flip through it.
The Heritage of Pan-Asianism
. A wartime edition. The paper was cheap and gave off a stink when I turned the pages. The contents, as expected from a wartime publication, terribly one-sided. Real boring too; stuff to yawn over every three pages. On some pages, words had been crossed out. There was not a single line on the February 26th Incident.

Tucked into the book, toward the end, was a sheet of white notepaper. After the yellowing pages, that white sheet came as some kind of miracle. It marked, on the right page, an addendum to the book. A list of names, birthdates, and permanent residences of all the so-called Pan-Asianists famous and unknown. I scanned the list from top to bottom, and there around the middle was the Boss. The very same “sheeped” Boss in whose name I had been brought here. His permanent residence, Hokkaido—Junitaki-cho.

In a daze, I set the book down in my lap. Words did not even form in my head. It was as if someone, or something, had given me a solid whack from behind.

How could I not have figured it out? It should have occurred to me first thing. The moment I learned that the Boss was from a poor farming background in Hokkaido I should have checked up on it. No matter how skillfully the Boss had managed to rub out his past, there would have been some way to search out the facts. That black-suited secretary would surely have looked it up for me.

Well no, maybe not.

I shook my head.

No way he wouldn’t have looked that up himself. The man was not so careless. He would have checked every possible angle, complicated or not. Just as he had done his homework on me.

So he already knew everything
.

That was indisputable. And yet, he had gone to great lengths to convince me, or rather to blackmail me, in order to get me up here. Why? If it was something that needed doing, surely he was in a better position to do it and to do a crack job of it. And if I were for some reason to be a pawn, why wouldn’t he have told me the name of the place from the beginning?

As I sorted through my confusion, I started to get mad. More and more, this had turned into one grotesque comedy of mishaps, and I didn’t think it was funny. How much did the Rat know? And while we’re at it, how much did the man in the black suit know? Here I was, smack in the center of everything without a clue. At every turn, I’d been way off base, way off the mark. Of course, you could probably say the same thing about my whole life. In that sense, I suppose I had no one to blame. All the same, what gave them the right to treat me like this? I’d been used, I’d been beaten, I’d been wrung dry.

I was ready to get the hell off the mountain, but somehow that offered no satisfaction. I had gotten in too deep. It would have been so easy if only I could have cried. But crying wasn’t an option, because I felt that far ahead of me there was something really worth crying about.

I went into the kitchen and got the bottle of whiskey. I could think of nothing to do but drink.

The morning of the tenth day, I decided to forget everything. I had already lost what I was supposed to lose.

In the middle of my morning run, it began to snow again. This time an opaque snow, a sticky, wet sleet edging toward ice flakes. Unlike the first loose snow, this one was nasty. It stuck to the body. I cut short my run, returned to the house, and drew a bath. While the bath was coming to temperature, I plunked myself down in front of the heater, but still I couldn’t get warm. A damp chill had seeped into me. I couldn’t bend my fingers and my ears burned and felt brittle, as if they would drop off any second. All over, my skin felt like cheap pulp paper.

A thirty-minute soak in the tub and hot tea with brandy finally brought my body back to normal, although for the next two hours I suffered from intermittent chills. So this was winter on the mountain.

The snow kept falling straight through until evening, covering the entire pasture in white. The snow let up just as night cloaked the world in darkness, and once again a profound hush drifted in
like mist. A hush I could do nothing to deny. I put the record player on automatic repeat and listened to
White Christmas
twenty-six times.

The snow did not stick for long. As the Sheep Man had predicted, the ground would not freeze for a while yet. The following day, my eleventh, was bright and clear. The prodigal sun bided its time, leaving the pasture a patchwork of snow, which gleamed in the sunlight. The snow that had collected on the roof’s gables came sliding down in would-be icebergs that broke up on the ground with an unnerving thud. Melting snow dripped outside the windows. Everything sparkled. Each droplet clinging to each tip of every oak leaf shone.