The Flower Mat Page 5

  "The hardship of giving birth will balance it."

  Ichi closed her eyes as she sat back in the bed. She heard the sound of water being drawn from the well, and it made her feel like a baby being tenderly cared for. This was the first time Shinzo had done such a thing for her. While she did not view it as the expression of a special love, still she was pleased by his kind treatment of her at this lonely midnight hour.

  Shinzo had returned to the mosquito netting.

  "After you've dried yourself you'd better lie down. I'll fan you a little." He picked up the fan from the head of the bed. "Ichi, you've grown thinner."

  "Have I really? I have the impression I'm gaining weight, and I feel uneasy."

  "First of all there's this heat. Then you worry all the time. But since everything you eat is taken by the baby, maybe there's nothing to be done about it."

  "To be a woman is to be useless." Ichi turned aside for a moment. "They say that husband and wife are two acting as one, but all I can do is get upset and worry as I watch my husband suffering for his important work. I can't understand a thing about it, and I can't even help you. No wonder we women and children are lumped together into one group ! But when all is said and done, are we women really as helpless as that?"

  "You're wrong. Husband and wife are two acting as one, but that doesn't mean they're the same. The fact is that if telling his wife something will only make her worry, the husband shouldn't tell her. Not because he considers her a helpless thing, but rather out of love, I think. A woman is by no means useless. She's to be treated kindly and protected."

  "But don't you think such concern springs from the idea that women are powerless and undependable?"

  "Then let me ask you this," said Shinzo, trying to be cheerful. "I do nothing but worry every time I think about your coming confinement. You'll probably get through it safely, but what are you going to do if it's difficult? No matter how much this worry is at the back of my mind, I am in the end helpless, for I can't share the pain of delivery with you. In this case, do you think I'm not a person you can depend on?"

  "You're changing the subject. You know very well that I'm not asking you about that."

  "Let's stop talking like this—if we go on much longer, we'll find that even the idea of husband and wife being two acting as one isn't true. Ultimately everyone is alone. . . . But talking about it doesn't help at all. In fact," said Shinzo in a lighter tone of voice, "I have a favor to ask you. If you open the left-hand door of the closet in my room, you'll find a bundle at the far end. You can feel it with your hand, even when the room is pitch black. This bundle is very important. If something happens while I'm out of the house, I want you to take care of it."

  "What do you mean by taking care of it?" Ichi asked. She began to tremble.

  "I want you to hide this bundle as best you can in a completely safe place. This is the main consideration, it must be absolutely safe. I want you to take care of this no matter what happens. Do you understand?"

  Ichi nodded wordlessly.

  "I don't think the occasion will arise, but since there's always the chance that worse will come to worst, I'm asking you to do this for me. I don't want my mother to worry, and Tatsuya's too easygoing. . . . Why don't you lie down now?"

  "I'm just fine now, so please go to bed. I'm overwhelmed by your kindness."

  "I'm not doing it just for you, Ichi, so don't let it overwhelm you. Just lie down. ... To be honest, maybe I'm doing it for the baby you're carrying. I'm also a father, you know."

  His kindness just isn't natural, Ichi thought as she lay down. Something serious is going on. Since he can't talk about it, he's being very careful. "Take care of the bundle in the closet. . . . We'll find that even the idea of husband and wife being two acting as one isn't true. Ultimately everyone is alone." . . . This house and the life at this home will be ended. Everything must come to an end.

  Ichi began to sob quietly. Shinzo, silent now, continued to move the fan noiselessly.

  Note: In the original Japanese text, the section describing the political situation in Ogaki was the first chapter of Part II. Adapted for the Western reader, it appears at the very beginning of this translation.

  7

  AFTER the departure of Shinzo and Kyunosuke for work the following morning, Chusai Yonezawa's wife came to the house to examine Ichi. She was a squint-eyed woman with a cheerful personality, but people pitied her because of her extreme obesity.

  "Since I don't have children, I keep cats," she used to explain, by way of introduction to her incessant conversations about cats. "I have more than ten now. Whenever I meet someone I urge him or her to take one of my cats, but still they keep multiplying, and I don't know what to do. But they're so lovable. . . ."

  She was encouraging about Ichi's condition. "You're taking such good care of yourself and are doing so well that I can't find anything wrong," she said, narrowing her eyes and wiping her forehead. "There's absolutely nothing wrong, but you might give birth ahead of schedule. I'm sure I told you it would be September 4th. Hmm ... I still can't tell exactly, but please be prepared for a slightly earlier date. No, no, you needn't worry; the baby is growing well." Ichi had been thinking that the continual lack of sleep and her extreme nervousness must be having a bad effect on her body. So the news that the date might be moved up, rather than the assurance that she was doing well, stuck in her mind, and her heart sank as she thought this was just what she had feared.

  An unusually cool wind was blowing, and the trees in the garden and the bamboo and bushes in the back yard rustled in the breeze. Ichi was now feeling the lack of sleep of the preceding night ; her nerves were rubbed raw and she had no energy to do anything.

  After lunch she went to her room. The wind blowing in through the window was so pleasant that it almost intoxicated her. She put up a small screen with a bush-clover design and lay down for a moment. She had no intention of going to sleep, but the fatigue accumulated in her body must have suddenly overwhelmed her. She fell so soundly asleep that although she realized someone was in the room and was trying to awaken her, she was unable to answer immediately.

  "Sister! Sister!" The person called her several times.

  She finally awoke with a start. Kyunosuke's wild eyes and totally white face were surprisingly close to hers. He was covered with so much perspiration that he seemed to be dripping water, and his shoulders were heaving from his heavy breathing.

  "Sister, please don't be shocked." Kyunosuke licked his dry lips. "There's been some misunderstanding, and I want you to leave the house. Please get your belongings together—only what's absolutely necessary, because we've got to hurry."

  "My husband ..." Ichi felt dizzy as she stood up. "What's happened to my husband? Is he safe?"

  "I'll explain it to you later. Please get ready first. Mother is coming now."

  Ichi saw that Kyunosuke's hakama had a foot-long tear up the side, a tear unmistakably made by a sword. He ran out of the room. Ichi's knees were trembling, and for just a moment everything went black around her. Perhaps it was only an illusion, but in this pitch-dark space she could see her husband's smiling face so clearly, more vivid than reality, and so fresh that she even thought she could touch him.

  My husband has died. Her instinctive feeling was definite, not vague, and so strong that it left no room for doubt. An unexpected change occurred in her mind with the coming of this feeling, an awareness of the fact that her husband's death was a natural event and had been destined to happen in this way from the beginning, that everything which had happened until now had been a promise pointing toward the accomplishment of that event. This feeling came floating up to the surface of her consciousness, and despite its brief existence it provided a balance for Ichi's emotions by encouraging determined action. This intuition of her greatest possible misfortune, namely, her husband's death, aroused power and courage in her.

  She began to hear the wind rustling through the bamboo bush in the back yard. Although her legs were still tre
mbling, her head and eyes were wide awake, and she felt strangely calm. She looked around the room, then put away the screen, mumbling, "This object, that one ..."

  Her mother-in-law was running down the corridor. Ichi went into her husband's bedroom, exclaiming "Oh!" and remembering what she had forgotten.

  "Ichi! Ichi! Where are you?"

  "Here." Ichi took her husband's bundle out of the closet. "I'm coming, mother."

  If I have to leave here, there's no place to hide this. It's not heavy or large, so I should take it with me, Ichi thought, holding the bundle to her breast. Only last night my husband asked me to take care of it. It was after midnight, and that's not so many hours

  ago. He mustn't have expected the crash to come so quickly. But maybe he had an inkling of it. Then how did he feel when he moistened the towel and fanned me without saying anything after I started to cry?

  As Ichi's thoughts ran on, her heart filled with emotion for the first time, and her tears poured down. "Darling!" she murmured, and pressed the bundle to her face.

  What happened between then and their departure from the house was confused. Everything happened at once and in total disorder, so that afterwards she could not distinguish before from after. What remained in her memory were the vigorous activity of Kyunosuke, who was running in every direction through the house, the calm voice of Iso giving orders to the servants, and the appearance of Tatsuya as he stood absentmindedly in a corridor holding a sack containing a creel and his favorite fishing rod. Somehow he had managed to get hold of them. He looked like a child who had been taken away from his playground and did not know what to do, and his nonchalant, easygoing appearance was totally at odds with the urgent atmosphere of that moment.

  Ichi could not even be sure at what point the officers had come from the castle. Perhaps it was after she had finished packing her belongings. Or, since Kyunosuke was standing next to her and scolding, "You can't carry so much. Can't you cut it down to half that?" it might have been before she had finished.

  In any event, there was a shout from the front room, and Kyunosuke and Gorobe Toda ran in that direction, their swords in their hands. Ichi remembered that the servant girl began to cry, that Iso took the Buddhist mortuary tablets of the family ancestors out of the household altar, that she heard a sound like that of a clothes pole falling down, that a male servant named Wakichi could not untie the string of his basket and was upset. Ichi wanted to take as many valuable things from her bridal trousseau as she could, and even made two extra bundles, thinking it would be all right if she carried them herself.

  These things seemed to happen after the fighting had started in the garden. Yet again it seemed as if packing was the first thing she had done, she was not at all sure. She heard the words, "By order of the lord—don't resist," and Kyunosuke's answer, "I shan't resist, please wait for us, we're getting ready." Was it after this or at the same time that three strange samurai came into the garden yelling something in a high-pitched shout uttered in a shivering trance, as if they themselves were frightened to death?

  Human feelings are strange. Ichi remembered very vividly that a honeybee was buzzing aimlessly about the room just then, that Gorobe Toda said, "I'll take care of this!" while Kyunosuke exclaimed, "Brother! Everything's all right here! Take care of the others!" and that then a sword flashed in the garden. She picked up the two bundles and started out the back door, but turned in time to see Kyunosuke shouting and whirling his sword.

  Wakichi, carrying some bundles in his basket, Nihei, an elderly male servant, and the servant girl went with them. She disappeared along the road, and they parted from Nihei at the bank of the Ibi River. (Ichi later learned that Kyunosuke had made sure they would not take anyone except Wakichi and had told them to leave Wakichi, too, at an appropriate place, so that he would not know where they were going.)

  When they parted from Nihei, Tatsuya took the servant's bundles. Until then Ichi had not noticed that Tatsuya was with them. She remembered his holding the fishing rod and basket and standing absent-mindedly in the corridor, but she had no recollection whatsoever of his activity after that. When she saw him taking the bundles from the servant, his presence there came as a complete surprise, almost a shock, to her.

  "You see where the willows are growing thickly, mother?" Tatsuya asked. The four of them continued along the bank for another twenty yards. Then Tatsuya pointed to a section of the river, saying, "Quite often we catch big catfish there."

  "Catfish are disgusting." Iso made a face and shook her head. "The very name makes me shudder. Catfish . . . have you ever fished for them, Tatsuya?"

  "I think it was last year that I came home with a cut hand, wasn't it? It was cut by a catfish. Those fellows have a hooklike thing at their chins, and people say even professional fishermen can be injured by it if they're not careful."

  Ichi listened to this conversation in utter amazement. Were these people really that insensitive? She even wondered if they were lacking something mentally. Soon she was attacked by a fit of anger that left her feeling almost dizzy, and she halted on the road. After continuing for about eight yards, Iso and Tatsuya discovered that she had stopped walking. They turned, and her mother-in-law came back.

  "What's happened to you? Aren't you feeling well?"

  "I'm all right."

  "Please bear with it for just a little while longer," Tatsuya called from where he was standing. "A little further on we'll come to a shady place where you can rest comfortably as long as you like. So please continue walking a little longer."

  8

  A LARGE peaked cloud glared blindingly down from its position over the Yoro mountain chain to the west. Wherever the travelers looked they saw only continuous stretches of green fields or moors thick with cattails and lotus. Here and there amid the green foliage they could see farmhouses surrounded by trees to protect them from flood damage.

  Since it was midday, there was no sign of a human presence in the fields, not even a child playing in the river. The wind was still blowing along the river bank, but when they went out onto the road they were surrounded by an unbearably humid heat rising from the grass and the steaming water in the rice paddies. They walked along the road for two hours, turning to the right or the left, enjoying some rest whenever they found a clump of trees.

  After passing through many small villages, they finally reached Kawado, beside the Ibi River. It was a landing stage for boats going to Kuwana in Ise, and despite the lack of houses it was a respectable-looking post town, with two or three inns that served lunch. The group entered one inn which looked a little better than the others, washed their feet, loosened their kimonos, and dried off.

  Here they parted from Wakichi. "Since we're going down to Kuwana by boat," Iso lied, "you may go home now. I think we'll come back to Ogaki someday, and when we do I'll get in touch with you and ask you to come back to work for us." Then she wrapped up some money and gave it to him.

  Wakichi insisted that he wanted to see them off on the boat, if he was not allowed to accompany them as far as Kuwana. But Iso talked him out of it, saying that this would attract attention, and sent him away after allowing him to eat lunch and drink some saké.

  The three of them rested until the sun began to sink in the west. They left some of their belongings with the innkeeper and headed back toward the Ibi River.

  Where in the world are we going? Ichi wondered. Tatsuya and Iso had told her nothing. It was the season of shortening days, and the sky had begun to turn a dark, madder red while the evening wind blew over the fields. The Yoro mountain chain had turned dark purple, and the foothills were already hidden by a thick mist. "Jhat, jhat, jhat," the wind rustled over the rice fields that surrounded them as far as they could see. The songs of clear-toned cicadas came to their ears from a great distance, and the lotus flowers glowed on the dim moor. The scene gave Ichi, who was walking without even knowing where she was going, an incomparably lonely, helpless feeling.

  "You know, over there you can see where
the streams of the river meet, sister." Tatsuya, who was covered with perspiration from carrying the bundles, looked at Ichi as they climbed up the river bank. "Just a little lower down lies the country of the Matsudaira, lords of Takasu. Since Ogasa village is right near the border, it's said to be very convenient in emergencies."

  "Is that where we're going?" Ichi asked.

  "Of course." He looked puzzled. "Kyunosuke told you that, didn't he? Didn't you hear him?"

  "Nobody heard it—you're the only one who knew it," said Iso. "Some friend lives in this what's-its-name village?"

  "You really are careless, mother. The old man's house is there. You should be a little more alert at such a time."

  "How could I know something I don't know? How on earth is some old man connected with Kyunosuke ? Is he a friend of yours too?"

  "I think it's Josuke," Ichi contributed, "the farmer who's always carrying vegetables."

  "Since you don't have practical common sense, you don't even notice such things, mother. Let's go down that way, sister. That hut is a ferry house."

  When they climbed down the river bank they found a field of reeds, as tall as a man, through which a narrow, damp alley led toward the river. It was already dark among the thick reeds, and only the tops of the leaves, swayed by the wind, caught the light.

  Since she could not bear the feeling of water penetrating the straw sandals tied to her feet, Ichi tried as much as possible to walk in areas covered by the roots of the reeds. Suddenly she was startled by a strange, momentary pain in her stomach. At Kawado she had felt a slight pain, but she attributed it then to a cold caught after perspiring a lot along the long road. Since it had stopped immediately without really hurting her, she had not paid it too much attention. But this time the strange new pain was ghastly, and it sent a splitting ache through her entire body.

  The baby may be coming, she thought, as she remembered that the scheduled date might be moved up. She groaned, wondering what she would do if the worst happened in this place, and she trembled all over, as if shaken by a chill. By the time she reached the ferry the pain had ceased, but upon reflection she realized that she had not felt the baby move for a long time. Having heard that just before birth the baby would not move, she thought there was no mistaking it. As soon as she walked into the ferryman's hut she told Iso about the pain, for she could no longer bear to keep it to herself.