The Flower Mat Page 6

  "I don't think it's possible," her mother-in-law said, but even she turned pale. "It's just a little over seven months, isn't it? Don't you think both today's events and this long walk are making you feel a little bit ill?"

  "I hope that's what it is . . . but is Ogasa village very far away?"

  Iso left the hut, calling "Tatsuya! Tatsuya!" As the ferry boat had just crossed over to the other side, Tatsuya had gone to the river to call it back.

  Iso soon returned and told Ichi in a relieved tone of voice that the village was only a bit less than a mile beyond the boat landing.

  "If that's all it is," Iso said, "it's only a step. There's a long time between pains in the first birth, so even if your time has come you'll be all right until you get there. . . . And now, Ichi, you shouldn't think about anything else except giving birth. This alone is your job. Be brave and forget about everything else but that. All right?"

  "Mother." Ichi looked into her mother-in-law's eyes. "Have you given up hope too, mother? My husband is already ..."

  "I'm not giving up hope or anything else," Iso quietly interrupted her. "Since self-sacrifice is required for the performance of a samurai's duty, it's enough that he does not disgrace the name of our ancestors and stray from the bushido.* I believe he certainly did his duty."

  Iso's voice was quiet, and there was nothing artificial in her expression. She said exactly what she was thinking, and her quiet words penetrated Ichi's mind. Only a short time ago, while walking along the river-bank, she had listened to Iso's and Tatsuya's conversation and been angered by their seeming insensitivity. She had even wondered how they could talk about such carefree things in such unfortunate circumstances and whether there was something mentally defective in them. Now for the first time she knew how wrong she had been. She could now remember her flurried and confused condition and the upheaval caused in her by her attachment to her husband. She realized that she was the one who should be laughed at. She bowed her head and held her lips tight in quiet determination.

  I shall become stronger. My husband has died to fulfill his duty as a samurai. He sacrificed his own life for the Ogaki clan without the slightest hesitation. I am the wife of such a brave man.

  In the boat she had the second labor pain. It was weaker than the first one, and Ichi's mind was strangely calm. She watched the river waves, which were turning a wintry color, and became even calmer as she thought. I shall give birth to a child, even if my time comes in the fields. Since mother, who has given birth to three children, is with me, and Tatsuya, I shouldn't worry about anything.

  The scenery changed completely on the other side of the river. Perhaps because this was high ground, it showed less flood damage ; there were more trees, and the hamlet of farmhouses was larger and serene looking. It was already dusk, and people were returning from the fields, walking along the street, laughing and talking in loud voices. The smoke of cooking fires rose with melancholy peacefulness from the tree-shrouded houses.

  These people have no worries, Ichi thought. They go home after their day's work is finished, they take a bath, wash off their sweat and fatigue, and then the whole family gathers around a peaceful dinner table. They are concerned with nothing but their fields and families ; they live humbly and are satisfied to support their loved ones.

  For a moment Ichi was tempted to compare their lives with her own present circumstances, but she shook her head energetically and continued her heavy walk. Tatsuya apparently had been here several times.

  He led the way through a narrow alley surrounding a mulberry field and went behind a stable. They reached their destination sooner than they had expected.

  Later Ichi realized that they had approached the house from the rear. Branches bearing large quantities of already ripe persimmons barred their passage. They crept under the branches, which crisscrossed so low that without proper caution they might have bumped their heads. An old man was standing in the bare black garden and looking in their direction.

  At that point Ichi was attacked by the third severe labor pain, but she nevertheless recognized the old man Josuke. Later she had no clear recollection of what kind of conversation they had exchanged with him or of how she had gotten into the house. The pain, which had started from somewhere in the center of her stomach, spread up and down with a severity that almost ripped her body apart, and her abdomen was squeezed with the wave of an acute pain. She tried unsuccessfully to suppress the moan coming through her clenched teeth. She crouched, but someone picked her up, and she was unable even to say that she could walk by herself.

  Sometime after midnight, with the help of Josuke's wife, Gen, Ichi gave birth to a baby girl.

  Footnote

  * Bushido: originally the purely military code of the samurai, stressing unquestioning loyalty and obedience and placing honor above life. In the eighteenth century it gradually evolved into a set of moral rules which spread through every social class.

  9

  ICHI'S idea that Josuke looked more like a retired elderly townsman than a farmer was correct—he was one of the rich landowners of Ogasa village. This was only a retreat for him; his real home was in Honaza. Rumor had it that long ago his family had had the family name* Washizu and that they had seen better days.

  An excerpt from the Heiji Story, handed down from generation to generation, had this to say about Josuke's family name :

  Thus Yoshitomo had been staying with Ohi. But since things were going that way he summoned Kamata, who was to leave shortly, and told him of his idea that he should get to the Inland Sea, since he could hardly go by the open sea route. Then Kamata answered that a man named Kuromitsu Washizu was a younger brother of Ohi and that since he was a notorious thief and a courageous man regarded with some honor, why not travel with him.

  Ichi had once read the story.

  In addition to his 7,500 acres of land and large tract of forest, Josuke owned a magnificent home and five storehouses, built in a farmhouse style that gave no hint of power or prestige. Old Josuke seemed to dislike the family legend, and smilingly said that "It's all invented—one of my ancestors who suddenly acquired the status of a small landowner made it up to gain prestige." Not even one generation was missing from his 8oo-year-old family genealogy, and this made it untrustworthy even in the eyes of the general public.

  Monshichi, the head of the family, had three children. He had put his fields and forests into the hands of an overseer and spent his life collecting old manuscripts and writing haiku. As for Josuke, he felt that it was a waste to be idle after retirement, so he carried the fruits of the seasons—his homegrown vegetables, persimmons, and pears—to Ogaki several days a week, thereby earning some additional money. Josuke and the head of the family obviously did not get along well, and apparently they hardly ever saw each other.

  It was well known that Josuke's wife, Gen, would not concern herself with the fields or household matters. She was constantly being asked to deliver a child or go to homes where there was a difficult case of illness. Her talents along these lines seemed to be quite famous, and sometimes she would even be called on to spend the night with some family of the Takasu clan, whose lords were the Matsudaira family. She was rumored to be fifty-seven, the same age as Josuke, but with her thick black hair and shining, ruddy cheeks she looked ten years younger. She was not talkative, but had a brisk manner and a vivacious, girlish laugh.

  "Don't think I'm boasting," she would often say, "but I flatter myself that I'm second to none in delivering a child. By now I've delivered a lot of children successfully; for example, a breech birth when even the doctor had given up hope. I think the trick is that I put myself into the frame of mind of the woman giving birth. But maybe nature has given me some special talent."

  She also said that cures were accidental and that it was not true that she knew medicine or performed spells. Whenever she heard that a sick person had been despaired of by his doctor, she could not stay home— she had to visit the patient uninvited and console him.

&nb
sp; "Nobody wants to die—that's human nature," she would say. "But all human beings must die sooner or later—shogun or beggar, they'll all go. Even the Buddha died. So if a person's illness is destined to be cured, he'll be cured even if a doctor despairs. Or someone who's fit as a fiddle in the morning will die by drowning in a river. We have to leave our natural span of life to nature. . . . All these things I say to the patient during the two or three days I spend with him. Somebody said my talk is more relaxing than a sermon by a Buddhist priest. I just want the patient to die with a relieved and tranquil mind, but since his sickness is sometimes cured ..." And she would laugh.

  This behavior by retired people who had at least a tradition of descent from So-and-so Washizu (even if it was difficult to take the tradition seriously) and who were major landowners was apt to become a source of gossip. However, in the case of this couple there was no gossip, and in fact many people admired them and depended more on them than on their own parents. Even people from other villages took off their hats in greeting when they met Josuke and Gen. This could have been due to Josuke's family connections or to the fact that Gen would never accept anything for giving help. But Ichi soon realized that when all was said and done their popularity depended on their personalities.

  The saying was that a baby one month premature would not live to grow up. But Gen told Ichi confidently, "I'm positive your baby will grow up. You know, a child even two months premature will survive, even if it's abandoned. So there's no reason why a baby a little less than two months premature won't. And since she's so strong, you have nothing to worry about."

  It was true that the baby was strong for a premature baby. The wet nurse's milk must have been generous, because by the time the frost began to settle the child had become surprisingly plump and was growing so

  well that nobody would guess she had been premature.

  Ichi's milk had flowed poorly from the very beginning. According to Gen, her mammary glands were not fully opened because her pregnancy had been cut short, but her milk would flow better as she let the baby suck. However, Ichi's glands did not open at all, perhaps because the baby's sucking power was not strong enough since she was getting milk from someone else; so the feeding of the baby was left to the nurse.

  Ichi named the baby Nobu. After celebrating Nobu's name day—the seventh day in the life of a newborn child—Ichi watched the face of the infant sleeping beside her in the dim light of the coming dawn and cried for the sad thoughts filling her heart.

  There were many sayings about the care of a child. One should never let it be buffeted about by a strong wind, one should take care of it as if it were a butterfly or a flower, one should bring it up "with a nurse and a parasol," as the expression went. Ichi had been brought up with the greatest care, as if all of these sayings had been applied to her. She had no recollection of ever having asked for anything because she had been given things constantly, some of which she had not even wanted or cared about. She had been loved, worried over, cared for, and spoiled by visitors, to say nothing of her parents and brothers.

  Ichi compared her life with that of her child. What a poor child she is destined to be ! she thought. Even while you were still in my body, Nobu, your mother passed days of uneasiness and suspicion. In addition to losing the most important final fifty days, when you should have been receiving the necessary equipment for your entrance into the world, you came into it in the shock of great misfortune and an excess of exhaustion which had befallen your mother, and in a room in a stranger's house.

  Suppose my husband has died already (for even Iso seems to think he is gone). . . . From now on Nobu's future will not be an easy one. Actually, we are hunted people. We have to hide from the eyes of the Ogaki castle people. If this goes on for long, just staying alive will not be easy. . . . Nobu! What's going to become of you? Ichi looked at the baby's sleeping face and bit the edge of the bed cover in an effort to keep her endless sobbing from her mother-in-law's ears. Her dark depression lasted for ten days after the birth.

  The room loaned to Ichi had formerly been Josuke's room. It had a square window with a southwesterly exposure, and along its east side was an open veranda with deep clay eaves. Beyond the veranda could be seen only a rather large, bare, muddy garden, and beyond that was a persimmon orchard through which green fields were visible. From the window she had a view of the Yoro mountain chain, which rose into the sky in such a way that it seemed to completely embrace the terraced, plowed land, the woods, and the hamlets.

  Since childhood Ichi had always shed solitary tears whenever she looked at mountains, for they aroused a sad and lonely feeling in her heart. The distant Mount Fuwa and Mount Yoro had been visible from the Okumura house in Ogaki, but she had made a determined youthful effort not to turn her eyes in their direction. This memory now returned to Ichi's mind after the long interval of so many years.

  The mountain she saw from her bed was much lower, quite different from the one she had looked at in Ogaki. In the morning she could clearly make out its deep groves of trees, the slanting surface of miscanthus waving in the wind, and the paths zigzagging up the mountainside. The mountain received the direct rays of dawn and shone with a beautiful, refreshing blue green color. Ichi was almost unable to endure the scene between noon and dusk when the face of the mountain would blanch from the glare of the overhead sun. But soon after the sun passed behind the mountain chain, its furrows and valleys offered a very vivid picture of light and shadow contrasts, the lighted areas being very bright while the shadowy areas were as dark as if they had no substance. This lasted only for a very short while, but nothing sharpened Ichi's awareness of time quite as much as this moment-by-moment movement of the sun.

  Oh, the miscanthus field has already become a shadow. The cedar grove over there is just as dark. Mumbling to herself, Ichi would wonder what sorrow or pleasure would make people go from laughter to tears in such a short time. She would never again be able to see that sunlight which until now had been shining on the miscanthus field; it was gone forever, and tomorrow's sunlight would be a completely different one. Human beings' sorrows and pleasures, even their lives, passed on and disappeared, just like this sun which was moving moment by moment. If everything passed away like this, were not all human actions a waste? Such thoughts persisted in her mind.

  At dusk the mountain would change to dark blue, then to purple. Then it would sleep, as if it had become a dark shadowgraph in an evening mist which was rising from its foothills. At this time of day in particular, the contrast of the still bright evening sky with the darkness of the mountain's shadow stirred a vague sorrow in the viewer's mind. Ichi felt that the mountain was weeping out of pity for her.

  "That's right, girl. I have seen thousands and millions of other people. Many lives and events have been repeated, yours among them. Your peaceful life, your pleasure and happy days are over. You will have to pass through dark, sad, difficult days, just as millions of other people have done. It is your destiny. Poor girl. All human beings are the same. Poor Ichi." The message blew through her heart like an elegy.

  Of course, such dark thoughts did not last long. Ichi soon recovered her composure, and simultaneously her feelings of sorrow for the child she was watching turned to passionate love. The change occurred very suddenly in Ichi's mind and filled her completely. I must not lose this child. I will raise her happily. I will give her everything. Her love conquered the dark thoughts with surprising strength.

  Nobu, you don't have a father, a house, or even property. But your mother will give you all these things. Since your mother has been too happy, she will devote the rest of her life to you. Dear Nobu, please grow up strong. Then I'll make you happy, happier than anyone else. And Ichi firmly believed that this was within her power.

  During this period she learned a little about current conditions in Ogaki. Josuke went down to the castle town every three days to sell vegetables and collected rumors from some samurai households which patronized him. However, despite the old man's ea
ger efforts, everything was hazy and vague with the exception of two or three points. Gorobe Toda had been slain on the road to Nakatsuji, the roshoku Geki Ohara had been confined to his house, several samurai and their families had been summoned before the public prosecutor, and a few of them had deserted and fled the clan after a fight.

  As for the Kugata family, the rumors were contradictory. Some people said that the entire family was being detained by the public prosecutor. There was a rumor that Shinzo and Kyunosuke had been run down in the castle and slain. How much of this was true was not clear. One could only guess that the clan rulers were keeping everything, including the reason for the events, a secret.

  The news that Kyunosuke had been slain in the castle together with Shinzo had to be false, since he had returned home in his torn hakama, and there was only one chance in a million that they had returned to the castle afterwards. But if both were among those who had deserted the clan after a battle, Kyunosuke would have visited them long ago, since it was he who had advised the family to take refuge in this village. He might have been slain or caught while escaping. This was the only point which worried Ichi, but she would have to wait for time to clarify this point.

  Ichi thought that all that she could do was wait for the future to clear up the story. All she wanted to know was the truth concerning the result her husband and the others had been trying to achieve. She knew from her husband's talk that it had something to do with politics, and she felt that she must at any price find out exactly what it was, what system they were fighting against, and what system would have been set up had her husband and the others overthrown the old one. She wanted to be able to tell Nobu about it one day when the child grew up.