The Silver Spoon (23 page)

The
yusura
plum
⁵⁶
and jujube fruit aren't that good but you are shamelessly greedy and don't leave a single fruit on the branches. The quince put on flowers that, unlike the tree, are gentle and bear fruit that, unlike the flowers, are rugged. But the fruit merely drop thud, thud, and though their smell is nice, they are puckery and, besides, they are like stones: your teeth are no match for them.

The flowerbeds in many parts of the spacious garden and the trees standing everywhere had no end of flowers, each according to its season. Lilies, sunflowers, yellow ox-eyes, globe amaranths, amaranths. The flowers of the hemp palm that resemble fish roe.

In early summer the nature of this garden delighted my heart the most. Late spring makes you feel almost suffocated with haze, and restless—south winds and north winds blowing alternately, no cold, no warmth, no clear day, and no rain ever lasting. When that season passes, heaven and earth become the domain of an utterly young, sparkling early summer. The sky becomes transparent, like water, the sunlight overflows, a cool wind blows down, purple shadows sway, and even that gloomy black pine looks unusually brightened up, if only because that's the way you feel. The ants build their towers here, there, and everywhere, winged insects come out of their holes and fly about as if the whole world were theirs, lovely baby spiders begin to dance under branches, under the eaves. We fish out grubworms with candle wicks, we bury the holes of wasps and listen to their piercing noises, we look for cicada shells, we walk around poking at caterpillars. Everything is young, joyful, alive. There is nothing to be hated.

At such times I liked to stand under the semi-dark shadow of the black pine and gaze toward the hues of distant mountains that were beginning to darken quietly, quietly. I could see the green rice paddies, I could see the forests, I could hear the sound of the waterwheel and the voices of frogs that the wind carried to me. And from within a stand of trees on the hill way beyond, the sound of a bell reached me clearly, brightly.

The two of us would watch a flock of night herons pliantly winging in the evening sun that still remained in the sky and sing “Evening glow, lovely glow.” From time to time a white heron went away with its legs outstretched.

14

In the silvery heat haze that envelops the flowers of the earth in its warm dreams and makes them smile meltingly, and, like the queens of this dream country, peonies bloom in many parts of the flowerbeds: white, scarlet, purple. Also, as in dreams, butterflies clad in various feathery wings flutter about playing with the flowers, and spotted beetles, all covered with pollen, become hopelessly intoxicated with honey. It was about this time that the sliding doors of the detached quarters, which mostly remained firmly shut and without a sound, would open to reveal an old monk leaning on his armrest. In front of those quarters was an old peony tree that the monk treasured, and on it light-pink single flowers amply bloomed, their petals laden with fragrant breath. From the main hall, the detached quarters lay beyond an arched bridge spanning a narrow courtyard. Under their sunlit porch thrived naturalized hardy begonias. At the edge to the left stood a blue paulownia and at the edge to the right a “white-cloud-tree,”
⁵⁷
both casting cool shadows. The old monk, who had turned seventy-seven, confined himself there and made no sound except in the morning and evening when he read sutras. All we knew, by way of the scent of the incense that occasionally leaked out of some crack, was that there was a man in there who was as quiet as a stone. At times he rang a bell for his tea that sounded like the song of a “darkening cicada.” If no one heard him, he would hold a tea cup as he might a small begging bowl and cross the bridge awkwardly to get the tea himself.

At other times the monk, summoned to a Buddhist service, would walk out forlornly, his hood slightly pulled up, a rosary in one hand, a stick in the other. Anyone who saw him so shabbily dressed would not imagine that this same person, when occasion required, wore a vermilion robe. Indeed, he lived separated from this world beyond a single bridge, quiet and unconcerned as if he knew nothing but that, come summer, peonies bloomed. Before long, child though I was, I developed reverence for the monk and began thinking of turning to him for succor. By that time I had become quite familiar with the people of the temple, and whether Sada-chan was there or not, I would go almost every day to play and walk in the garden with hands on my hips like an old man or tour the cold cemetery—from time to time with tears in my eyes as I thought of the fate of other people or the fate of myself. . . . It was my habit to walk, face down, staring at my feet, thinking, feeling like a chain-dragging convict who is ashamed of his appearance.

15

One day when Sada-chan wasn't home and I was playing by myself, the usual “darkening cicada” bell rang in the detached quarters. But it was bad timing; there was no one in the dining room. So I mustered some courage and went myself. In the dim room that you reached immediately after crossing the bridge was a robe-hanger holding things like a surplice and a dangling rosary, and there was a thin waft of incense seeping in. There I suddenly became a little unnerved and hesitated. Hard of hearing, the old monk must not have heard my footsteps, for he clunked his bell again. Finally, I opened the fusuma door and placed my hands on the tatami. Without thinking, he held out a large saucer, but then he saw my face and said, “Oh, my, oh my.”

Eyelids trembling, I bowed, received the saucer, and, feeling embarrassed or happy or as if some big wish had been fulfilled, went over to the dining room, poured the
bancha
⁵⁸
that was there, as I had seen it done, and took it back. The bridge was rotten and swayed, making me almost spill the tea. When I lowered my head and offered it to him, he said, again, “Oh, my, oh my.”

I quietly closed the fusuma and, relieved, returned across the bridge. From then on I sometimes went to the monk in place of his family but, even though my only hope was to have a chance to speak to him, once I found myself in front of him I was unable to say anything. I would simply receive his cup silently, offer it back to him silently, and come away. He, too, would merely repeat “Oh, my” as if he were an owl or something and would not try to speak to me. Once while I was crossing the bridge holding the black-lacquered saucer, a bulbul that had come to eat nandina
⁵⁹
berries hastily flapped up, making me spill the tea. At other times, on moonlit nights, white flowers fluttered down to the bridge. And so I crossed the bridge often enough, but there was no way of breaking the ice with this hermit who was like a dead tree. However, once, when the bell had clunked yet again, I placed the tea cup before him, as always, and was leaving, when unexpectedly he called to me from behind.

“I'll do some painting for you. Buy some paper and bring it here.”

Feeling as if tricked by a fox, I bought Chinese paper
⁶⁰
and put it before him. He rose from the spot by the armrest where he usually sat as if rooted, and took me to the next room, which was sunlit. Everything in the room had turned sooty-brown and there hung a small framed calligraphy with Camellia Age
⁶¹
written on it. Made to sit a lot closer to him than I was used to, I became drenched with sweat even while watching closely, as if it were something mysterious, every move made by a person who till then I had assumed would ring a bell until his death as stiffly as a stone buddha.

The old monk brought out a large inkstone, made me rub an ink stick, took up a brush, and drew a picture of a dishcloth gourd with casual ease: one leaf, one vine, and one dishcloth gourd. On it he wrote:

He then drew a cipher that looked like a kettle, examined the whole thing from this way and that, and suddenly laughed a bright, dry laugh.

“Now, I give this to you. Take it someplace.”

He then put the inkstone on a shelf, washed his brush, and quickly went back to his diamond seat
⁶³
to turn himself into the stone buddha that he was. Like a monkey who has fallen from a tree,
⁶⁴
I was crestfallen as I went home with the picture of the dishcloth gourd.

It was about three years afterward that the old monk passed away. I had gone up to middle school, Sada-chan had left home to become a live-in servant, and so my link to the temple had been gradually severed. But suddenly one night a messenger came to tell us the monk had passed away, so I went with father to offer condolences. The monk had had no special illness and had run his life span, so to speak, we were told. During his last days his past disciples, now resident monks in various places, had taken turns caring for him. For the first time in a long while I crossed the bridge, of which I had many memories. The detached quarters were thick with the smoke from incense, with many monks I remembered from Dai-Hannya rites
⁶⁵
gathered there talking. In a ritual chair placed in the room where he had once drawn a dishcloth gourd for me, the old monk was seated in utter quietness, legs ritually bent, clad in a surplice of gold brocade, a
hossu
⁶⁶
in hand, like the stone buddha he had been in the past. As in the past I went before him, bowed, and offered incense. The bumpy-headed priest whom we had nicknamed Abbot Henjō
⁶⁷
was munching a wheat cake, saying, “That was a great rebirth, that was a great rebirth.” I felt even more like a monkey who has fallen out of a tree.

16

By then it must have been many years since my aunt, having luckily found a good traveling companion, had left our place to visit her ancestral grave, moved by old memories of her native place, thinking she'd be away only for a brief while. Soon after arriving there, though, she fell gravely ill and for a time she was certain to die, they said. But she must have had some more years left to live: she finally managed to make a full recovery. Still, because of her age she'd grown too weak to travel back to us. She herself had given up on the idea and became, by request, a house-sitter for a distant relative.

Following my father's old-fashioned notion, “Send the child you love on travels,”
⁶⁸
I was made to travel, during the spring vacation of my sixteenth year, to the Kyoto and Osaka region to cure my inborn melancholy. It must have cured my illness for I remained away, doing as I liked, until I was called back home. On my way back I decided to visit my aunt, thinking it would be my last farewell. The place she lived in was a section crowded with small houses by a riverbank called Boat Crew, where during the shogunate the boat-crew unit of the fiefdom is said to have lived. I couldn't find her house easily, continuing to make inquiries until the sun set, when I happened to walk in the gate to a temple-like place facing a hardware store. I couldn't tell whether people lived there or not; it was all ancient and empty, with neither a single stalk of grass nor a tree, all denuded and parched. I stood at the open entrance and called out a couple of times, but there was no reply. I was in a strange town, it was night, and I felt diffident as I looked around. Then I noticed a small wooden door next to an empty plot on the left the size of four tatami, which didn't exactly look like a garden. I quietly opened it and looked in and saw a grubby old woman crumpled up like a shrimp alone sewing at the end of the porch, with no lights on though it was dark. Feeling guilty that I'd walked into a stranger's garden without permission, I stepped back and, bending forward over the wooden door, said, “Excuse me.”

The old woman, unconcerned, went on moving her needle.

“Excuse me.”

Was she deaf? For some time now my hand holding the luggage had felt ready to drop off. I couldn't take it any longer.

“I wish to ask a question, ma'am,” I said and strode in. The old woman, finally noticing me, raised her face. I couldn't see well in the dark, but terribly aged and harrowingly gaunt though she had grown, she was, unmistakably, my aunt. I was too startled to do anything but to stare at her face. She hurriedly put her work aside and placed her hands on the porch in a show of formal respect.

“May I ask who you are, sir? Lately I can hardly see. . . . I've also become very hard of hearing. . . . And I always end up giving people trouble.”

I remained silent. She leaned her upper body forward a little.

“May I ask who you are, sir?” she repeated.

Struggling with the lump in my chest, I finally managed: “It's me.”

Even then she continued: “Who are you, sir, if I may ask?” After closely looking me up and down awhile, she must have decided I was, in any event, someone she knew well. She rose to her feet, picked up a cushion as thin as a rice-cracker that was by a brazier in the inner part of the room, and laid it by the Buddhist altar.

“Now please come in,” she said, stooping as someone inviting a guest inside. In the meantime I finally calmed myself down and laughed.

“Aunt, can't you tell? It's me, Kansuke.”

“Yes?” She hurried out to the edge of the porch, looked into my face for a while without blinking, and then, tears flooding and repeating, “It's you, Kan-sa. Oh, oh, it's you, Kan-sa,” she caressed me, who had grown much taller than her, from head to shoulder, like the Lord Pindola.
⁶⁹
And as though afraid I might fade away, she kept her eyes on me even while taking me in to sit me down next to the hand-warmer.

“My, you've grown so big but you haven't changed a bit.” And hardly finishing the routine greetings, evidently wanting to touch me more, and prayerful, she wiped away her tears.

“I'm so glad you came. I had thought I might not see you again before I die.”