Fish of the Seto Inland Sea

5

Spring

In the spring, lots of snakes came out from between the stones of the walls surrounding the Shirais’ house. Haruko and Sachiko were collecting cast-off snake skins which were like lace. It was six months since they had returned to their grandparents’ house with their mother.

‘Good afternoon, girls,’ a tall black figure said. The two girls looked at each other and ran away from him to the back of the house.

‘Where is Hiden sama?’

Shige’s husband stopped cutting wood and, resting his hands on the handle of the axe, told them, ‘He was with Shu dansama in the garden.’ The two boys were target shooting with handmade bows and arrows. The girls ran to them.

‘Hiden sama, Shu-chan.’

Hideto ignored them. Shuichi copied everything that Hideto did.

‘Listen,’ Haruko said, panting, and Sachiko giggled. ‘The crow has come.’

‘Oh, no.’ Hideto stopped shooting and looked at the girls.

‘I have an idea,’ Haruko said. ‘Let’s all run away to the woods and hide. Are you coming, Hiden sama?’

If they were going to the woods, they needed Hideto to protect them from snakes, village boys and all sorts of dangers.

The crow was a nickname the children had given to Rev. Kondo because of his long black robe. He came every Wednesday afternoon from a nearby town to perform Christian services at the Shirais’. Everybody at home including the servants was expected to attend. Shobei had ordered an organ for Ayako from Tokyo and a former schoolmistress, came and played it.

Not only was the service boring for the children, but Rev. Kondo had an unnaturally long face. When his jaw was pulled down to sing a hymn, the girls and young maids in the back row had to endure excruciating hardship not to burst out laughing. On one occasion, one of the maids who sat right behind Haruko suddenly slapped her on the back and said, ‘Oh, no, Haruko ojosama,’ and went into fits of hysterical laughter. Everybody turned around and stared at Haruko. Altogether, the service was something they did not look forward to.

Later, the children were called by Tei-ichi.

‘Hideto.’ Tei-ichi addressed Hideto in a severe voice. ‘It was very rude of you to run away from the service when Rev. Kondo came all the way from the town to teach us lessons.’

‘Yes, otohsan.’

‘You should be old enough to know that. It was particularly naughty of you to have told the younger ones to run away with you.’

‘I am sorry.’

Haruko’s heart was beating fast, but Hideto did not make any excuses.

‘Go to the storehouse.’

The storehouse was at the end of the corridor and was built to withstand fire. It had mud walls which were one metre thick and no window. Two thick oak doors separated it from the main house. At the outbreak of fire, the doors would be sealed with mud. It was dark and cold inside.

To be locked up in the storehouse was the worst punishment.

Towards night, clanging a bunch of large keys, Kei came in, a lamp in hand.

‘Hideto?’ She held up the lamp and called, peering inside. ‘Come with me and we will apologise to otohsan.’

Kei and her son bowed to Tei-ichi. Kei said, ‘Now he knows he has done wrong. He says that he will not do it again. Please forgive him.’ She turned to Hideto. ‘Apologise to otohsan.’

After that Kei sat Hideto down and gave him his evening meal which she had kept for him.

In the summer, Haruko, Sachiko and Shuichi followed Hideto around. When he appeared, village bullies left them alone. In order to establish this position, Hideto had been involved in a few serious fights and had again been locked up in the storehouse by Tei-ichi.

Unlike the Miwas, the Shirais had evening meals together. Now that the older boys were away at university and school, Tei-ichi, Hideto and Shuichi sat at the top of the table. One evening, Tei-ichi looked down towards the end of the table and said, ‘I saw monkeys today up in a tree in the village.’

‘Monkeys?’ Kei asked. ‘I have never seen them so far away from the mountains.’

‘These monkeys I saw today were strange monkeys. They were wearing kimonos.’

‘I see,’ Kei said. ‘You had better tell them to go back to the mountains next time you see them.’

‘I will try. But I wonder if they will understand ... After all, they are monkeys.’

Haruko and Sachiko were red in the face and hunched their shoulders, making themselves as small as possible. Ayako looked at them amused. As Shobei wished, she was treated by Tei-ichi and Kei as though she was one of the children. She was more relaxed and happier.

‘When I was going on my rounds,’ Tei-ichi would say at another meal, ‘I saw two naked girls swimming in the river with the village children. They looked exactly like ours, but I don’t suppose we have such ill-behaved children in our family, do we? What do you think, Ayako?’

Everybody, even the servants, laughed, except Haruko and Sachiko.

Tomboys ought to be restrained, Tei-ichi believed, but he wanted Shuichi to be vigorous, even boisterous. He was the important charge trusted to him by the Miwas. As a doctor, he did not think that tuberculosis was hereditary, as it was generally believed, but suspected that there might be a constitutional tendency to the disease. Shuichi was tall for his age, but his neck was thin and he looked delicate. In Tei-ichi’s opinion, too many women fussed around him.

One evening, in early autumn, the sun was still high, but it was cooler and the smell of burning dry leaves was drifting in the air. The household was beginning to get busy. The bathtub had to be filled, washing had to be taken in and put away, and the evening meal had to be cooked. By the well, Shige was scaling a large fish. Shobei, who often went fishing early in the morning, had hung his catch at the Shirais’ gate on his way home before the household woke up.

‘Mata san,’ Kei was calling.

‘I sent him to town for shopping,’ Shige’s voice was heard.

‘Haruko nesan,’ Sachiko said, ‘I want a notebook.’ Nesan meant older sister.

‘I will give you one. It is nearly new.’

Sachiko indicated her dissatisfaction by being silent.

‘Let’s go to town,’ Sachiko insisted.

It took about an hour to walk to town and there was a tacit understanding that the children were not allowed to go on their own, especially in the evening.

‘Haruko nesan, let’s go to town,’ Sachiko repeated. Since they had moved to the Shirais’, Kei left social obligations more and more to Ayako and she was often out or away from home for a few days. Takeko had always been Kei’s favourite and hung around her grandmother. Sachiko was increasingly dependent on Haruko.

As the two girls started out, Shuichi appeared from somewhere and followed them.

‘Shu-chan, we will be back soon,’ Haruko tried. They wanted to return home before dark. They did not want to be saddled with a four-year-old boy.

‘I want to come.’ He looked at Haruko.

‘Where is Hiden sama?’ she said, but even before she asked, she knew Hideto had been away the whole afternoon with his friends. He must be climbing up a waterfall, or hanging on vines and jumping across a stream. He would no doubt be a general assaulting ‘Port Arthur’.

‘All right, you can come.’ Haruko stopped walking. She tidied Shuichi’s kimono and tied his sash tight. She held his hand and started off on the path between the rice paddies.

They saw Matabei coming back from shopping.

He asked, ‘Oh, Haruko ojosama and Sachiko ojosama, Shuichi dansama, as well? And where are you going?’

Sachiko said, ‘Just over there.’ She was quicker at tact than Haruko.

‘Over there?’ Matabei bent his head on one side and looked at the girls. ‘Don’t be too long, ojosama,’ he said.

‘Oh, no, we’ll be back very soon,’ Sachiko said.

They started to run. Matabei stood with a pole over his shoulder, shopping dangling from both ends. He looked after them for a minute, then went home, taking steps in rhythm with the movement of the pliable pole.

When they arrived in the little town with one narrow street, the sun had gone farther down and one side of the street was almost in darkness. At the back of a small shop which sold an assortment of stationery, sweets and haberdashery, there was a large persimmon tree laden with red fruit. The persimmons were shining in the evening sun.

The shopkeeper’s wife came out, wiping her hands on her apron, and opened her eyes wide in surprise.

‘Oh, Shuichi dansama, and Haruko ojosama and Sachiko ojosama, that was a long way to come.’

They did not know that they had to pay for the notebook but the woman did not worry about it either. She knew she would be paid later. When they said, ‘Thank you,’ and went out, she called after them, ‘Go home quickly. The autumn sun sinks very fast.’

‘I want to go home,’ Shuichi said. He must have been tired. It was getting dark rapidly and Haruko and Sachiko, too, were homesick. The worry of being scolded began to seem real as well.

‘I am hungry,’ Shuichi said. Haruko and Sachiko also felt hungry.

‘Let’s take the railway track,’ Sachiko suggested. The idea had crossed Haruko’s mind. If they took the railway track, it would take only about half an hour to get home, but they had been told by Tei-ichi many times that they must not walk on it. Even for Hideto, whose activities were hardly restricted at all, the railroad was an exception.

‘I want to go home,’ Shuichi repeated, holding Haruko’s hand. Haruko made up her mind.

They jumped from one sleeper to the next, and sang songs. There were lots of lovely pebbles to collect. They came to a railway bridge. They squatted and looked through the railings. Far below, the Kitaka river was heard, but the water was dark. Their village, Kitani, was along the river, a little upstream. It was the familiar river where they swam in summer when they thought no adults were around.

Home was not far away. They could get off the railway soon after the bridge and, within ten minutes, reach the big gate.

Haruko was relieved and astounded almost at the same time. She heard the tooting of a train and, as she looked, a light was approaching rapidly.

‘Sachiko san, sit here.’ Her voice was harsh in her anxiety. ‘And Shu-chan next to Sachiko san.’

The thought which flashed through Haruko’s mind was that Shuichi should not die. She had promised her father to look after him. How her mother would cry if she lost Shuichi.

She pushed herself against the railings and told Sachiko and Shuichi to do the same. She reached behind Sachiko’s back to hold Shuichi across his shoulders. The train might kill her. She hoped that Sachiko would be safe, though she might be killed as well. But Shuichi would be protected if there were two people shielding him. He had to be saved.

Now she prayed, ‘Please, God, I am sorry I did not listen to Rev. Kondo. Please help Shu chan for okahsan’s sake.’

It did not take long for the train to pass, thundering by.

‘Shu dansama, Haruko ojosama, Sachiko ojosama.’ They saw a lantern and heard Matabei’s voice. A tenant farmer had told Matabei that he had seen three children walking on the railway track.

Tei-ichi had heard from Matabei how Haruko was sitting with the other two, protecting them.

‘Haruko, were you not afraid yourself ?’ Tei-ichi asked. He was unexpectedly gentle.

‘Yes, but I thought it would be all right if Shu-chan was saved. Okahsan won’t cry.’ As far as she could remember, Haruko had not been afraid. She had been too busy trying to save Shuichi.

Tei-ichi was silent. Haruko was surprised that she was not locked up in the storehouse. Her grandfather’s eyes were a little moist. That surprised her as well. After sitting there for a while, Tei-ichi said, ‘Let’s go and have supper.’

By the time Haruko was ten years old, Shobei’s fears about Rinji had been confirmed. It was well known that Tetsu’s father was losing his business to another stonemason in the next village as he had taken to drinking. His son, Tetsu’s brother, had never been promising. The family debt was accumulating. People gossiped that his daughter’s marriage into a rich family had turned the stonemason’s head.

‘Perhaps we should divorce her,’ Shobei muttered in front of his wife. ‘She has no children. We could send her home. We can give her some money ...’

It was the duty of a bride to bear children for the family she married into. The Miwas had a right to divorce Tetsu. It occurred to Shobei that the Chinese characters for ‘barren woman’ were ‘stone’ and ‘woman’, but his sense of decency restrained him from making a poor joke in front of his wife.

‘To send Tetsu home might be a solution,’ his wife said, ‘but you will not be popular. Even if you gave her money, her relatives would bear a grudge against you, and they are not a small family. It will not be good for Shuichi’s future.’

That was true. The little boy would need as much sympathy and help as possible as he grew up. In this part of the country, where tangerines grew in the winter sun, everything was easy-going, and a peasants’ uprising was unlikely. But society was changing. The Socialist Party had been launched and the People’s Newspaper was in circulation. There were strikes in the factories and mines. Shobei was afraid that when Shuichi grew up, the life of a landowner would not be as easy as it had been.

It was not just the material side of life that was under threat. Although Shobei himself was not directly involved in politics, he was recognised as one of the most powerful men in the area. Officials came from the local government to ask his opinion. Candidates for any government office were said to have to get his unofficial approval as the first step. For a person in such a position, a scandal about a member of his household being treated unkindly had to be avoided.

Shobei said to his wife, ‘You are thoughtful. If you have a suggestion, say it.’ It was the first time he had asked his wife’s opinion on a weighty matter since they had married a long time ago.

‘I think you should pay Tetsu’s father’s debt. It could not be too large for you. If the problem is drinking, the chances are that he will not be able to go back to his business. Pension him off. Then, make Haruko the rightful successor to Rinji san. No one will say you are cruel.’