The Sound of the Mountain (10 page)

Finally she got up and shook the puppies away, and came running down the slope. A black puppy that had clung to a nipple with particular stubbornness was sent tumbling from the mound.

It was a three-foot drop. Shingo caught his breath in alarm. The puppy got up as if nothing had happened, and, after standing there blockishly for a second or two, walked off sniffing at the earth.

‘What is it?’ He felt that he was seeing the pose for the first time, and that he had seen exactly that pose before. He thought for a moment.

‘That’s it. The Sotatsu painting,’ he muttered. ‘Remarkable.’

Shingo had glanced at Sotatsu’s ink painting of a puppy, and had thought it altogether stylized, like a toy; and now he was astonished to see it reproduced in life. The dignity and elegance of the black puppy were exactly like the Sotatsu.

He thought again of how realistic the
kasshiki
mask was, and of how it had reminded him of someone.

Sotatsu and the mask-maker were of the same period.

Sotatsu had painted what would today be called a mongrel puppy.

‘Come and look. All the puppies are out.’

Hugging the ground in fright, the other four puppies came down the slope.

He watched expectantly, but none of the other four struck the Sotatsu pose.

He had seen the puppy become the Sotatsu picture, and the
jido
mask had become a living woman; and had he also had a fleeting glimpse of the two in reverse?

He had hung the
kasshiki
mask on a wall, but he had put the
jido
mask far back in a drawer, like some esoteric object.

Yasuko and Kikuko came to the wash stand to see the puppies.

‘You didn’t notice while you were washing?’

Kikuko, looking out from behind them, put her hand lightly on Yasuko’s shoulder. ‘A woman is too rushed in the morning. Isn’t that so, Mother?’

‘It is. And Teru?’

‘Where will she have gone? She’s left them to wander around like strays,’ said Shingo. ‘I hate to think of throwing them away.’

‘I’ve already married off two of them,’ said Kikuko.

‘You’ve found someone to take them?’

‘Yes. Teru’s owner wants one. He says he wants a female.’

‘Really? He wants to change her for a puppy now that she’s gone astray?’

‘So it would seem.’ Kikuko turned to Yasuko: ‘Teru has gone off to eat somewhere.’ Then, leaving her earlier answer to speak for itself, she amplified upon this last remark for Shingo: ‘Everyone in the neighborhood is amazed at how clever Teru is. She knows when everyone eats, and shows up exactly on time.’

‘Really?’ Shingo was a little disappointed. He had thought that, taking her morning and evening meals here, Teru had made this her home; was she still walking the neighborhood with an eye on all the leftovers?

‘To be more precise,’ added Kikuko, ‘it’s not the mealtimes she knows but the times when people are cleaning up afterwards. Everyone in the neighborhood is talking about how Teru had puppies here, and I get all sorts of reports on her activities. And when you’re away, Father, children come and ask to see the puppies.’

‘She seems very popular.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Yasuko. ‘One lady said something interesting. She said that now that Teru had had puppies here we would be having a baby. She said that Teru was urging us on. Aren’t we to be congratulated?’

‘Really, Mother.’ Kikuko flushed, and took her hand from Yasuko’s shoulder.

‘I’m just reporting what a lady in the neighborhood said.’

‘You mean there is someone who puts people and dogs in the same category?’ It came to Shingo that the remark had not been very tactful.

But Kikuko looked up. ‘Grandfather Amamiya is very worried about Teru. He came and asked if we wouldn’t take her in. He spoke of her as if she were a child, and I didn’t know what to say.’

‘Why not take her in?’ said Shingo. ‘She’s here all the time anyway.’

Amamiya had lived next door to Teru’s master, but, failing in business, he had sold his house and moved to Tokyo. His old mother and father had lived with him and done odd jobs around the house, and, the Tokyo place being small, they had been left behind in a rented room. The old man was known in the neighborhood as ‘Grandfather Amamiya’.

He was the one Teru was fondest of. Even after he moved into the rented room, he came inquiring after her.

‘I’ll run and tell him so,’ said Kikuko, going back into the house. ‘He’ll be very relieved.’

His eye on the black puppy, Shingo noticed a broken thistle under the window. The flower had fallen, but the stem, bent from its base, was still a fresh green.

‘Thistles are very strong plants,’ said Shingo.

It began raining on New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day was rainy.

On New Year’s Day the Occidental way of reckoning ages became official. Shingo was therefore sixty-one, Yasuko sixty-two.

New Year’s Day was a day for late sleepers; but Shingo was aroused early by Satoko. The child was scampering up and down the veranda.

‘Come here, Satoko.’ Kikuko also seemed to be up. ‘I’ve got a New Year’s pudding for you. You can help me heat it.’

Apparently she wanted to lure the child to the kitchen, away from Shingo’s room. Satoko seemed indifferent, however. The scampering went on.

‘Satoko,’ Fusako called from bed. ‘Come here, Satoko.’ Satoko was no swifter to answer her mother.

‘A rainy New Year,’ said Yasuko, also awake.

Shingo grunted.

‘With Satoko up, Kikuko has to be up and around. Fusako manages to stay in bed, I see.’ She stumbled over the last words. Shingo was amused. ‘It’s been a long time since I last had a child to wake me up on New Year’s morning.’

‘You’ll have plenty of other mornings, too.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, really. It’s just that there aren’t any verandas in Aihara’s house. Once she gets used to them she’ll stop running around.’

‘I wonder. Don’t most children her age like running up and down verandas? Why do her feet sound as if they were sticking to the floor?’

‘Because they’re so soft.’ Yasuko listened. ‘It gives you a strange feeling, doesn’t it? She should be five this year, and all of a sudden she’s three. It doesn’t make all that much difference for me, shifting from sixty-four to sixty-two.’

‘But there’s something you haven’t thought of. My birthday comes before yours, and for a while then we’ll be the same age. From my birthday to yours.’

Yasuko seemed aware of the fact for the first time.

‘Quite a discovery. Once in a lifetime.’

‘Maybe so,’ muttered Yasuko. ‘But it doesn’t do much good to start being the same age this late in life.’

‘Satoko,’ Fusako called again. ‘Satoko.’ Apparently tired of running, Satoko went to her mother. ‘Just feel how cold your feet are.’

Shingo closed his eyes.

‘It would be good if she’d do all that running while we’re there to see it,’ said Yasuko after a time. ‘But when we are she starts sulking and hanging onto her mother.’

Perhaps each of them was trying to detect in the other signs of affection for the child.

It seemed to Shingo, in any case, that he was being probed by Yasuko.

Or perhaps he was probing himself.

The sound of the feet clinging to the floor had not been pleasant, for he had not had enough sleep; but, on the other hand, it had not particularly irritated him.

Yet he had not felt the tenderness the footsteps of a grandchild ought to bring. There was no doubt that he was wanting in affection.

No sense of the darkness, out there on the veranda with the shutters still closed, came to him. It had apparently come to Yasuko immediately. In such ways the child was capable of arousing her compassion.

Fusako’s unhappy marriage had left a scar on Satoko. It aroused a certain compassion in Shingo too, but more frequently it was a source of irritation. For nothing could be done about it.

He was astonished at the extent of his helplessness.

No parent could do a great deal about the married life of his children, of course; but what was truly striking, now that matters had reached a point where divorce seemed the only solution, was the helplessness of the daughter herself.

For her parents to take her and the children in after the divorce would solve nothing. It would be no cure, and it would bring her no life of her own.

Was there then no answer at all for a woman whose marriage had failed?

When, in the autumn, Fusako had left her husband, she had gone not to her parents’ house but rather to the family seat in Shinano. It was from there that she had let them know by telegram of her departure.

Shuichi had gone to bring her back.

She had then left again, after a month in Kamakura, saying that she was going to make a clean and final break with Aihara.

Perhaps it would be better for Shingo or Shuichi to go have a talk with him, they had said; but she had not listened. She must go herself.

‘But that’s exactly the point, what to do with the children,’ she said when Yasuko suggested that she leave at least them behind. She leaped on Yasuko in a manner almost hysterical. ‘I don’t know whether I’m to have them or Aihara is.’ And so she had gone out and not come back.

It was after all a matter between husband and wife, and Shingo and his family were worried, not knowing how long they should wait in silence. And so the uneasy days passed.

There came no word from Fusako.

Had she settled down with Aihara again?

‘Things are just going to drag on?’ said Yasuko.

‘Well, it’s we who are letting them,’ replied Shingo. Both faces were clouded.

Then, suddenly, on New Year’s Eve, Fusako had come back.

‘What’s happened?’ Yasuko seemed frightened as she looked down at her daughter and grandchildren.

Her hands trembling, Fusako tried to close her umbrella. One or two of the ribs seemed to be broken.

‘Is it raining?’ asked Yasuko.

Kikuko stepped down into the doorway and took Satoko in her arms.

She had been helping Yasuko with the New Year’s food.

Fusako had come in through the kitchen.

Shingo suspected that she had come for money, but such did not seem to be the case.

Yasuko wiped her hands and went into the living room. ‘A fine thing, sending you away on New Year’s Eve!’ She stood gazing at her daughter.

Fusako was weeping silently.

‘It’s better this way,’ said Shingo. ‘A clean break.’

‘Oh? But I wouldn’t have thought it possible for anyone to be turned out of the house on New Year’s Eve.’

‘I came of my own accord.’ Fusako was choked with tears.

‘Oh? Well, that’s different, I suppose. You’ve just come to spend the New Year with your family. I shouldn’t have put it the way I did. I apologize. But let’s not talk about it now. We’ll have a good talk during the holiday.’ Yasuko went to the kitchen.

Shingo was taken somewhat aback by his wife’s tone; but it had in it a certain echo of maternal affection.

Yasuko was moved, naturally enough, both by the sight of her daughter coming home through the kitchen door on New Year’s Eve, and by the sound of the child’s footsteps on the dark veranda; but Shingo sensed an element of deference toward himself.

Fusako slept later than the others on New Year’s morning.

They could hear her gargling as they sat at the table. Her ablutions went on and on.

‘Let’s have one while we’re waiting,’ said Shuichi, pouring sake for his father. ‘You’re getting a good number of gray hairs these days.’

‘Of course. At my age you get more of them every day. Every day – sometimes you see them turn gray right in front of your eyes.’

‘Ridiculous.’

‘No. Just watch.’ Shingo leaned forward. Yasuko and Shuichi looked at his head, and Kikuko was gazing intently.

She had Fusako’s younger child on her lap.

A second
kotatsu
had been brought out for Fusako and the children. Kikuko joined them in another room.

Yasuko sat to one side as Shingo and Shuichi faced each other over wine cups.

Shuichi seldom drank at home; but today, perhaps having been led beyond his capacity by the rainy New Year’s Day, he poured cup after cup for himself, almost ignoring his father. His expression was not his usual one. Shingo had heard how, at the establishment of his mistress, Shuichi had gotten violently drunk, and how he had made the woman cry by insisting that her friend sing to him.

‘Kikuko,’ called Yasuko. ‘Would you mind bringing us some oranges too?’ Kikuko slid open the door. ‘Come and sit over here. I have a pair of silent drinkers on my hands.’

Kikuko glanced at Shuichi. ‘I don’t think Father is drinking all that much.’

‘I’ve been thinking a little,’ muttered Shuichi. ‘About Father’s life.’

‘About my life?’

‘Oh, nothing very definite. But if I had to summarize my speculations, I suppose they would go something like this: has Father been a success or a failure?’

‘You think you would be able to judge?’ Shingo was silent for a moment. ‘Well, the food this New Year has a little of the taste it had before the war. In that sense you can say I’m a success.’

‘The food – did you say?’

‘I did. And wouldn’t that be about it? If you say you’ve been giving a little thought to your father’s life.’

‘A little.’

‘An ordinary, mediocre life that’s come as far as it has, and now it runs into good food at New Year’s. Lots of people have died, you know.’

‘True.’

‘But whether or not a parent is a success
would
seem to have something to do with whether or not his children’s marriages are successful. There I haven’t done too well.’

‘That’s your feeling, is it?’

‘Oh, stop it, you two.’ Yasuko looked up. ‘You aren’t getting the year off to a very good start.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And don’t forget that Fusako is here. Where is she, by the way?’