The Flower Mat Read online

  Ichi began to tremble.

  No, it's not a question of whether I can or can't—I must do it. I don't know what kind of formalities will be required to obtain an audience, but as long as I can go before him, nothing is impossible if I give up my own life. There must be one thing which will attract his attention. As long as I have this plan . . .

  Stories about the calamity were spreading far and wide; more than ten houses had been swept away in one place, many people had died, a whole village had been completely wiped out, hundreds of dead bodies were found at this or that dike, so many fields were under water, so many completely destroyed, and so on. Normally rumors of this type would have died away naturally, but this time they increased, giving numbers of houses, people, domestic animals, and fields, and it was even rumored that famine throughout the Mino region could no longer be avoided.

  Completely unconcerned, Ichi turned a deaf ear to the rumors. Her mind was filled with one thing alone. The bright, clear, completely windless days continued, and the mud-covered fields stretched for endless miles under the dazzling sun. The now cloudy water formed an enormous lake. Branches thrust their heads up from the water, and villages became visible, their rooftops forming islands. But even these scenes seemed remote and uninteresting to Ichi. She looked at them with her eyes, but her mind was concerned with something else.

  There were about thirty refugees in the straw hut where Ichi and her mother-in-law were receiving assistance. This village alone, it was said, had five such huts. The sorrow and despair of these people who had lost their fields, belongings, parents, children, and husbands and wives did not move Ichi.

  Moans and sobs were heard in the night, Iso's among them. She would cry out, "Nobu! Nobui" and sob for a long time. She had lost her first grandchild. Worse yet, that child had been abandoned before her very eyes, and in her stead. If she had not lived, the baby might have been saved. Iso was unable to banish this idea from her mind, and the sound of her voice calling her grandchild was enough to break any listener's heart. Ichi could understand Iso's feelings, but she herself was completely numb and unable to shed even a single tear, and her mind was cheerless and calm.

  When I come before Lord Toda, she would think, gazing at the pitch black night sky and listening to her mother-in-law's sobs, how can I attract his attention? How? . . .

  On the seventh morning after the flood Ichi went out to Takahata. The distance was under two miles, but the road was flooded, and here and there it was barred by mud, trees, or ruined houses washed down from farther up the river. She was forced into so many detours that the trip took her a long time. Takahata was not flooded, and it presented an incredibly peaceful scene, except for the emergency aid hut.

  After four or five inquiries she found Mozaemon and his son in the garden of a house. Hei was watching an ant lion under the persimmon tree, and Mozaemon, his hands absent-mindedly stuck into his belt, was watching a dragonfly flitting about. When Ichi called him, he grinned emptily. In a moment, however, the grinning face turned pale and stiffened.

  "My wife is . . ."he murmured. "How is Toshi?"

  Ichi turned around silently. Hei was standing under the persimmon tree and looking in her direction with his big, earnest, almost pleading eyes.

  Ichi looked straight into Mozaemon's eyes and told him, "I want you to get my belongings." Then, without looking at his face she went over to the persimmon tree, bent down, and took Hei in her arms. The child tried to push her away. Ichi held him across her bent knees and pressed her cheeks softly against his hard, sunburnt ones. She wanted to say that his mother would be back soon, but her tongue would not move and no sound came out. The child indicated his dislike and, slipping out of Ichi's arms, ran away.

  "Since Morishima is still under water, we can't go back," Mozaemon said absent-mindedly. "My horses have gone, and it seems that the storage building was smashed . . . the water came too quickly. . . . There are worse places. The mountain fell in Harui. ..."

  Ichi took out one parcel from her bundles, tied them up again, and asked him to keep them in his charge for a while longer. Mozaemon accompanied her to the road. His stupidly honest face was still white and stiff, and he frequently raised his bony black hand and rubbed the back of his neck.

  "Well, then ... so you are staying in Kajita," he murmured, looking at the ground, when they were about to separate. "Please tell the old lady that I'm keeping her belongings in my charge for their safety. And that the child and I are safe. Please tell her that."

  As she turned onto the road, a voice called from behind her, "Auntie!" Turning around, she saw Hei peeping at her through the screen of bushes.

  "Auntie!" he called again. Ichi nodded to him and paused as if to say something, but then she turned onto the road and began walking.

  17

  ON HER way back to Kajita she heard a rumor, apparently well substantiated, that Lord Toda was inspecting the flood district. He was said to have shown up at one village the other day and to have spent the night in yet another. She also heard detailed stories from a person who had actually seen his retinue.

  He must be coming to Shimada village, too, Ichi thought, and decided that if so this would be her best opportunity. An audience with him merely for the sake of a flower mat might be postponed by others after such a great calamity, but it provided Ichi an excuse to try to have an audience quickly. Ichi almost ran the rest of the way to Kajita.

  "Oh! What about Tatsuya?" Iso said the moment she saw Ichi. "Isn't Tatsuya with you?"

  "Is Tatsuya safe?"

  "But you ..." Then her mother-in-law stopped breathing for a second and smiled a twisted smile. "How foolish I am . . . I'm sorry. I guess I dozed off and was dreaming. Sorry to have said such a foolish thing to you. I thought you were talking with Tatsuya as you came along the road. I even heard it so clearly."

  "I want to leave for Shimada right now." Ichi deliberately paid no attention to her mother-in-law. "I have an idea. I'm afraid it may be two days before I'm able to return. ... I want to stop in Ogasa to see Josuke."

  "I'm all right now; I could go too—but do you think the roads are still bad?"

  "I think that for a while longer it will still be hard for you to get around, since it's still flooded and the roads have been destroyed. . . . I'll return as soon as possible."

  Ichi spoke in a blunt, unusually determined manner which Iso had never seen before, so she said nothing more and merely watched her daughter-in-law uneasily. Ichi left the hut without waiting for the free rice-soup lunch.

  The parcel she had brought back to Kajita contained valuable hair pieces, combs, and mirrors which she had brought in her trousseau. She had brought them out now with the intention of selling them.

  An autumn wind was blowing, but the midday sunshine was hot enough to burn her skin ; since the red mud which had come down from the mountain had dried and now whirled dustily whenever the wind blew, her eyes, mouth, ears, and even the roots of her hair were immediately covered with dust. Everywhere a free rice-soup lunch was being served in huts crowded with half-naked men, women, and children. People were saying that an epidemic was spreading, and posters forbidding the drinking of unboiled water were displayed everywhere. Even the dried areas and the rice paddies, not to mention the fields which had been destroyed or were under water, were covered with a whitish mud. The plants swaying in the wind made an empty noise like the sound produced by rubbing sawdust.

  Ichi looked at these sights without the slightest emotion. She did not knit her eyebrows or change color at the vision of even the most painful scene, but merely hurried on her way northward, looking straight ahead coldly and without expression.

  It was about eight o'clock in the evening when she finally reached Minojin House. She had heard that this area too had been attacked by the water. The weaving shop was stripped and bore not the slightest resemblance to its previous appearance, and more than half of the willow trees that had served as a fence had fallen down. But the main house had been saved ; only the
tatami downstairs had gotten wet.

  Old Mankichi, dressed only in his undergarments, was puttering about, but when he saw Ichi coming he shouted in surprise and rushed to meet her, throwing down what he was holding. Ichi went forward to greet him, but suddenly everything turned black before her eyes, and she fell, stretching out her arms in search of something to clutch for support. The ground of the cold unfloored area felt pleasantly fresh and cool. Then she felt as if she were sinking, and she lost consciousness, overcome by hunger, fatigue, and heat.

  She regained consciousness around midnight and found that she was lying under a large 20-mat mosquito netting while Mankichi was moving the fan at the head of the bed.

  Ichi made sure that the parcel was beside her. Then she quietly turned her head and asked him, "Have we had a visit from the lord yet?"

  The old man looked at her with a puzzled expression, apparently believing that she was in a delirium.

  Ichi moistened her sticky tongue and asked again, more clearly, "Have you had a visit yet from Lord Toda?"

  "Not yet, my lady," the old man answered soothingly, making a breeze with the fan. "He was supposed to visit us today, but it was postponed for reasons connected with the schedule of his retinue."

  "Oh, I see . . . good, good."

  "I'm lucky; that was a narrow escape," she murmured to herself, and fell back to sleep as if drugged into slumber.

  By morning her fever had not abated and when she got up her head swam, so that she could not walk without being supported by a servant. She had no appetite and suffered from severe headache and nausea. But she was straining every nerve, and when Teijiro paid her a visit she immediately told him, "I should like to have an audience if the lord comes."

  Teijiro started to say something, but Ichi interrupted him. "It's the only request I'll ever make in my life," she pleaded several times. "I shan't make any trouble for you."

  The fact was that Minojin House had been designated a rest house for Lord Toda, and preparations to receive him had already been made downstairs. Since Ichi had already received a summons for an audience, it would not be difficult for her to see him as long as she was not sick. It was her health that made Teijiro hesitate. He was thinking that the officers would soon be arriving, that if they found out there was a sick person in the house he would be punished, and that he must move her somewhere now. But he realized that the manner in which Ichi expressed her request was not normal. The eager expression in her eyes, which were dimmed with fever, had a desperate power which would not allow him to refuse her. Turning to Mankichi he said, "You'd better move her to the storeroom, even if it is hot there." Then, standing up to leave, he told Ichi to be ready to move.

  "I think Lord Toda will visit this afternoon, so you'd better be well rested by then. You can't do anything unless you're able to get out of bed. I'll manage the rest somehow."

  "I'm all right. I'll definitely get up." Ichi twisted her face violently. She was attacked by a wave of severe dizziness and nausea, and just as she was deciding to fight it off she fainted again.

  The intervening events before her appearance seemed to be without any order, as if one were looking piecemeal at a picture scroll. But when the appointed time approached she got up, sent the maid for cosmetics, and fixed her hair and made up her face with the maid's help. The cosmetics had belonged to Teijiro's wife, who had returned to her parents' home, and they were old and dried out, but at least they served to hide her sickly pallor. She cut an irregular patch out of a piece of brown silk fabric for a disguise and pasted it on her right cheek. Then she lay down again, listened to people's steps and the noise of the officers who seemed to have just arrived, and fell back into her uneasy, paralyzing half-sleep.

  When Teijiro came in with Mankichi, Ichi immediately opened her eyes. She sat up with the same naturalness with which she had just come out of her sleep.

  "You shouldn't try too hard." Teijiro came close to her. He was wearing kamishimo, or formal dress, and the white socks known as tabi. "Don't force yourself too hard until you come before Lord Toda. Since I told them only that you were not feeling too well, everything will be all right."

  "I can get up." Ichi lightly held the parcel, which she had put in her kimono sleeve, and stood up like a different person. "I can walk all by myself. Are there many attendants around?"

  "Only four, plus one major vassal."

  "What's his name?"

  "Chikara Toda, they say."

  A very faint smile curved Ichi's lips. What would I do if it were my father? had been her only fear. If she had heard Teijiro say Kasho Okumura, Ichi would have been paralyzed.

  She followed quietly after Teijiro.

  A special exception had evidently been made, because of her indisposition, for her to be received on the veranda instead of in the garden. Lord Toda was seated in the highest seat, surrounded by a curtain bearing his family crest. To his left and right sat four or five samurai.

  When Teijiro had finished his introduction, a voice asked the two to raise their heads. The lord, dressed in a linen kimono and hakama, proved to be a man with a long, dark, tired face. On his hip was a very ordinary small sword in a black-lacquered sheath. Every so often he coughed dryly and rather severely, wiping his lips with tissue paper. He praised Ichi for the magnificence of the flower mat she had recently made and, after thanking her for her service, inquired about the design of her machine.

  "Please allow me to answer Your Highness directly," Ichi said. Then, her face still bowed, she answered his questions. She felt perfectly calm and was able to speak clearly. She explained to him as simply as she could how she had felt when she saw the flower mat for the first time, about the things that had happened since she had been hired by Minojin House, and about the sincere help of the master and his servants, which perhaps had been more decisive than her own efforts. She told him that she thought she could make many more mats of even more refined and beautiful style if she modified the weaving machine properly and got better rushes, and that for this purpose she would like to request a subsidy from His Highness.

  "Concerning this matter," she added, "I have here something in which I have written down my ideas," and she took out of her kimono sleeve the parcel of five volumes. "I beseech you to give this material special consideration and look at it by yourself."

  Ichi then lifted her face, tore off the silk patch disguise pasted on her cheek, and advanced on her knees, looking at the lord. A voice shouted, "Insolent woman!" Chikara Toda barred her path and two of the vassals in attendance stood up.

  Ichi gazed straight into the lord's eyes and cried, "It's a matter of the greatest importance to your royal house. Please look at it with your own eyes. Please!"

  The two vassals who had stood up arrested her. Toda grimaced unpleasantly, but stopped when Ichi was arrested. It was her good fortune that the major vassal in attendance, Chikara Toda, had not been involved in the political fight. If he had been a member of the Otaka clique, things would not have worked out so easily for her. At his shout of "Stop !" all the men, with the exception of the one grasping Ichi's shoulder, refrained from touching her.

  "I'll look at it. Bring it here," the lord said quietly. He had a deep, very youthful voice.

  One of his vassals took the parcel and handed it to him. He opened it, saying, "Let her go." Then he looked at the title of each volume and skimmed its contents with seeming lack of interest. After that he rewrapped the parcel and put it by his side.

  "I permit you to answer my question directly. From whose family do you come?"

  "I am the wife of an obscure man of no social position."

  "Do you know the details of what is written here?" he asked in a very business-like tone, as if he did not care whether she knew or not. "Did someone tell you to petition me?"

  "Being a woman, I know nothing about the details of this matter. I merely wanted, as his wife, to be my husband's successor and emulate his sincerity. He often said that he would sacrifice his own life for your royal hou
se, the government, and the citizens and farmers of your clan. No one told me to do this ; it was my own decision, made after I received permission to have the honor of an audience with you."

  "I ask you once again. Whose wife are you?"

  "He is of very low social position. Please forgive me . . ."

  She broke off, and fell senseless to the ground. A voice said, "Look after her," and someone seemed to be supporting her. But she felt that she was falling down into jet black, angry waves and that her whole body was being turned around. She was drowning, she thought, and realized that at least she had to help Nobu, and she tried to push the child in her arms up to the surface of the water.

  That was all she remembered. The power which had been sustaining her melted away, and she fainted.

  18

  SHE WAS told that as many seven days had elapsed before she regained consciousness. Old Josuke of Ogasa was the first of her visitors whom she remembered. His wife, Gen, had nursed Ichi for five days and two sleepless nights, but Ichi's recollection of Gen was confounded with that of her mother-in-law, who took turns watching her after that. She was told that she had persistently begged everyone to sell her combs and hair pieces and to give the money to Iso, but Ichi had no recollection of this at all. At this point people had begun to worry about Iso for the first time, and they tracked her down through Mozaemon in Morishima and brought her to Minojin House.

  Kyunosuke had been a frequent visitor before she recovered consciousness, but the brother whose face remained most vivid in Ichi's memory was Tatsuya. He had sat at the head of her bed, his fat knees crossed, smiling with his usual easygoing expression, and told her many things.

  "You know, I made a field on the roof this time, because those chaps called crops need sunshine and blowing wind. Then I'll be able to grow a big turnip. They say that turnip and catfish don't like metal. . . . They say we should wear straw sandals during floods. I was told we could get through the flood rather easily if we fix red clog thongs to them. I made some and brought them here, so you'd better put them on. I made some for Nobu—it's all right, as there's a flood."