The Sound of the Mountain (20 page)

The broad-leafed branches spread out as if to enfold and hide the two of them.

Shingo sat down on a bench, but he felt restless.

Kikuko looked at him, puzzled, as he stood up again.

‘Let’s go have a look at the flowers over there,’ he said.

There was a bed of white flowers, fresh in the distance beyond the lawn, about as high as the dipping branches of the tulip tree.

‘They had a victory reception here for the generals in the Russo-Japanese War. I was in my teens, still out in the country.’

There were trees in grand rows on either side of the flower bed. Shingo chose a bench set among them.

Kikuko stood before him. ‘I’ll come home tomorrow morning. Tell Mother, and see that she doesn’t scold me.’ She sat down beside him.

‘Do you have anything you want to say to me first?’

‘Say to you? All sorts of things, but …’

Shingo waited hopefully the following morning, but Kikuko had not yet come back when he left for the office.

‘She said I was to see that you didn’t scold her.’

‘Scold her?’ Yasuko’s face was bright and happy. ‘We ought to apologize.’

He had said only that he had telephoned Kikuko.

‘You have a remarkably strong influence on her.’ Yasuko saw him to the door. ‘But that’s all right.’

Eiko came shortly after he arrived at the office.

‘You’re prettier,’ he said affably. ‘And you brought flowers.’

‘I can’t get away once I’m at the shop, and so I walked around killing time. The florist’s was beautiful.’

But the expression on her face was solemn as she approached his desk. ‘Get rid of her,’ she wrote with her finger on the desk.

‘What?’ He was startled. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone for a minute?’ he said to Natsuko.

Waiting for Natsuko to go, Eiko found a vase and put three roses in it. She was wearing a slip-on dress that gave her the look of one who worked for a
modiste.
She had put on a little weight, he thought.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday.’ Her manner was strangely tense. ‘I – coming two days in a row, and all that.’

‘Have a seat.’

‘Thank you.’ She sat with bowed head.

‘I’m making you late for work.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Looking up at him, she drew in her breath sharply, as if she were about to weep. ‘Is it all right to talk to you? I’m boiling over, and I may be a little hysterical.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s about the young mistress.’ She choked over the words. ‘I believe she had an abortion.’

Shingo did not answer.

How could she have known? Shuichi would hardly have spoken to her of it. But Eiko worked with Shuichi’s woman. He braced himself for unpleasantness.

‘It’s all right for her to have an abortion.’ Eiko hesitated again.

‘Who told you?’

‘Shuichi got the hospital money from Kinu.’

Shingo felt a tightening in his chest.

‘I thought it was outrageous. Really too insulting, too unfeeling. I felt so sorry for the young mistress that I wanted to cry. He gives Kinu money, and so I suppose you can think of it as his money, but it wasn’t the right thing to do. He comes from a different class than the rest of us, and he could put together that amount of money any way he pleased. Does being on a different level make it all right for him to do things like that?’ She fought to keep her slender shoulders from trembling. ‘And then there was Kinu, letting him have the money. I couldn’t understand her. I was boiling over. I wanted to talk to you even if it meant that I couldn’t work with her anymore. I know I’m telling you more than I ought to, of course.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You were good to me here. I only met the young mistress once, but I liked her.’ Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘Have them separate.’

‘Yes.’

She meant Shuichi and Kinu, of course – and yet the remark could also be interpreted as referring to Shuichi and Kikuko.

Into such depths Shuichi had been pushed.

Shingo was astonished at his son’s spiritual paralysis and decay, but it seemed to him that he was caught in the same filthy slough. Dark terror swept over him.

Having had her say, Eiko prepared to leave.

‘Don’t rush off.’ He sought to detain her, but without enthusiasm.

‘I’ll come again. Today I’d weep for you and make a fool of myself.’

He felt benevolence and a sense of responsibility in her.

He had thought it remarkably indelicate of her to go to work in the same shop as Kinu; but how much worse were Shuichi and Shingo himself.

He gazed absently at the crimson roses Eiko had brought.

Shuichi had said that squeamishness had kept Kikuko from bearing a child ‘with things as they are now’. Was she not being trampled on for her squeamishness?

Unknowing, Kikuko would now be back in Kamakura. He closed his eyes.

On Sunday morning, Shingo sawed down the
yatsude
at the foot of the cherry.

He knew that to be quite rid of it he would have to dig up the roots; but he told himself that he could cut the shoots as they came up.

He had sawed it down before, and the effect had been to make it spread. Once again, however, digging up the roots seemed too much trouble. Perhaps he did not have the strength.

Though they put up little resistance to the saw, there were large numbers of stalks. His forehead was bathed in sweat.

‘Shall I help you?’ Shuichi had come up behind him.

‘No, I can manage,’ he answered somewhat curtly.

Shuichi pulled up short.

‘Kikuko called me. She said that you were cutting down the
yatsude
, and I should go help.’

‘Oh? But there’s only a little more.’

Sitting down on the
yatsude
he had cut away, Shingo looked toward the house. Kikuko, in a bright red obi, was leaning against a glass door at the veranda.

Shuichi took up the saw on Shingo’s knee. ‘You’re cutting it all, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’ He watched the youthful motions as the remaining four or five stalks were cut down.

‘Shall I cut these too?’ Shuichi turned toward Shingo.

‘Just a minute.’ Shingo got up. ‘I’ll have a look.’

There were two or three young cherry trees; or possibly they were not independent trees but branches. They seemed to come up from the roots of the parent tree.

At the thick base of the trunk, as if grafted on, there were little branches with leaves.

Shingo backed off some paces. ‘I think it would look better if you cut the ones coming from the ground.’

‘Oh?’ But Shuichi was in no hurry to set about cutting them down. He did not seem to think Shingo’s idea a very good one.

Kikuko too came down into the garden.

Shuichi pointed the saw at the young trees. ‘Father is in process of deliberating whether to cut them or not.’ He laughed lightly.

‘Yes, do cut them.’ Kikuko’s solution came readily.

‘I don’t know whether they’re branches or not,’ said Shingo to Kikuko.

‘Branches don’t come from the ground.’

‘What
do
you call a branch coming from the roots?’ Shingo laughed with the others.

In silence, Shuichi cut the shoots.

‘I want to leave all the branches and let it grow and spread as it wants to. The
yatsude
was in the way. Leave the little branches there at the base.’

‘Tiny little branches, like chopsticks or toothpicks.’ Kikuko looked at Shingo. ‘They were very sweet when they were in bloom.’

‘Oh? They had blossoms, did they? I didn’t notice.’

‘Oh, yes. One little cluster, and two and three. And I believe the ones like toothpicks had single blossoms.’

‘Oh?’

‘But I wonder if they’ll really grow. By the time they’re like the bottom branches of the loquat and the wild cherry in the Shinjuku Garden, I’ll be an old woman.’

‘Oh, no. Cherries are quick growers.’ He looked into Kikuko’s eyes.

He had told neither his wife nor Shuichi of the visit to the Shinjuku Garden.

And had Kikuko revealed the secret to her husband immediately upon her return to Kamakura? Since it was not really a secret, she had probably spoken of it as a matter of no moment at all.

‘I understand you met Kikuko at the Shinjuku Garden,’ Shuichi might have said; but if it was hard for him to broach the subject, then possibly Shingo should speak first. Both were silent, and there was a certain strain between them. Perhaps, having heard of the visit from Kikuko, Shuichi was feigning ignorance.

But there was no sign of embarrassment on Kikuko’s face.

Shingo gazed at the tiny branches at the base of the tree. He painted in his mind a picture of them, now feeble, mere sprouts in an improbable place, growing and spreading like the under-branches in the Shinjuku Garden.

They would make a splendid sight, dipping to the ground and heavy with flowers; but he could not remember having seen such a cherry tree. He could not remember having seen a great cherry tree with branches sweeping from its base.

‘What shall I do with the
yatsude
?
’
asked Shuichi.

‘Throw it away in a corner somewhere.’

Gathering the
yatsude
under his arm, Shuichi dragged it off. Kikuko followed with several branches he had left behind.

‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘You still have to take care of yourself.’

Kikuko nodded and stood where she had dropped the branches.

Shingo went into the house.

‘What was Kikuko doing in the garden?’ asked Yasuko, taking off her glasses. She was trimming an old mosquito net to use for the baby’s naps. ‘The two of them out in the garden together on a Sunday. Very unusual – they seem to be getting along better since she went home.’

‘She’s lonely,’ muttered Shingo.

‘Not necessarily.’ Yasuko spoke with emphasis. ‘She has a nice laugh, and it’s been a long time since I last heard her laughing so. She’s a little thinner, and when I see her laughing …’

Shingo did not answer.

‘He comes back early from the office, and he’s at home on Sunday. Storms make trees take deeper root, they say.’

Shingo still did not answer.

Shuichi and Kikuko came in together.

‘Father, Satoko tore off your much-prized branches.’ Shuichi held the little branches between his fingers. ‘She was having a great time dragging away
yatsude
, and then she ripped off your branches.’

‘Oh? The sort of branches a child would be likely to rip off.’

Kikuko was half hidden behind Shuichi.

When Kikuko came back from Tokyo, she brought Shingo an electric razor of Japanese make. Yasuko received an obi binder, and Fusako dresses for the two children.

‘Did she bring Shuichi anything?’ Shingo asked Yasuko.

‘A collapsible umbrella. And she seems to have brought an American comb with a mirror on the case. I’ve always been told that you don’t give people combs, because that means breaking off relations or something of the sort. I imagine Kikuko doesn’t know.’

‘I don’t suppose they’d say so in America.’

‘She brought a comb for herself, too. A little smaller, and a different color. Fusako admired it, and got it. It probably meant a lot to Kikuko to come back with a comb like Shuichi’s; and Fusako reached in and grabbed it. Just a silly little comb.’

Yasuko seemed to find her daughter hard to excuse. ‘The children’s dresses are good silk, real party dresses. It’s true that Fusako herself didn’t get anything, but the children’s dresses were really presents for her. Kikuko must have felt guilty about Fusako when she gave away the comb. I don’t see how any of us can expect presents from her.’

Shingo agreed, but had causes for gloom unknown to Yasuko.

Kikuko had no doubt borrowed money from her family. Since Shuichi had gone to Kinu for the medical expenses, it did not seem that either he or Kikuko had money for presents. Under the impression that the medical expenses had been paid by Shuichi, Kikuko had probably importuned her parents.

Shingo was sorry that for some time now he been giving Kikuko nothing resembling an allowance. He had, to be sure, had good intentions; but as Shuichi and Kikuko had drifted apart and he had drawn closer to Kikuko, it had become more difficult for him to give her money as if in secret. But perhaps, in his failure to put himself in her place, he had resembled Fusako as she took possession of the comb.

And since it was because of Shuichi’s philandering that she was short of money, Kikuko could hardly come crying to her father-in-law for an allowance. Yet if Shingo had shown more sympathy, she would not have had to submit to the indignity of having the money for her abortion come from her husband’s mistress.

‘I would have felt better if she hadn’t brought anything,’ said Yasuko meditatively. ‘How much do you suppose it all came to? A great deal, I’d imagine.’

‘I wonder.’ He made a mental reckoning. ‘I have no idea how much an electric razor costs. I’ve never noticed.’

‘Nor have I.’ Yasuko emphasized this admission with a nod. ‘If you think of it as a lottery, you got the top prize. That’s the way Kikuko would want things to be. It makes noise and moves.’

‘The blades don’t move.’

‘They must. How else would they cut?’

‘No. I’ve stared and stared, and they don’t move.’

‘Oh?’ Yasuko was smiling broadly. ‘The top prize, absolutely, if only from the way it makes you look like a child with a new toy. You buzz and grind away every morning, absolutely delighted, and you feel your pretty, smooth skin all through breakfast. It embarrasses Kikuko a little. Not that she’s not pleased, too, of course.’

‘I’ll let you use it.’ He smiled, but Yasuko shook her head emphatically.

Shingo and Shuichi had come home together on the night of Kikuko’s return; and the electric razor had been the object of much breakfast-room attention.