Seven Japanese Tales Read online

  I was sure that Father would ask me what I thought of her, whether I didn't agree that she looked like my mother. But he said nothing, nor did I try to find out how they happened to become acquainted. Somehow I hesitated to bring the matter up. To tell the truth, if I'd been asked whether or not she looked like my mother I would scarcely have known what to say. At least, my first glimpse of her had not given me the impression that here indeed was the reincarnation of my mother. And yet her soft, round face, her delicate body, her calm, unhurried speech, in particular her polite reserve and utter lack of flattery when we met, together with her indefinable attractiveness and charm — in all this she seemed to resemble my mother, and I felt friendly toward her.

  “Who was that?” I asked Okane later.

  “I really don't know,” she said. Possibly she had been warned not to tell me.

  “Is this the first time she's come here?”

  “No, she was here about twice before. . . It's the first time she's played the koto, though.”

  I saw the woman once more that summer, around the season when you begin to hear the song of the thrush. That time she seemed even more at ease, staying to feed crumbs to the fish with Father and me after playing the koto. But she left before supper. Again her koto was put in the alcove — maybe she came to the house more often than I knew.

  One day in March, when I was eight years old, Father called me into the veranda room to talk to me. I think it was after supper, about eight o'clock in the evening, when no one else was around.

  “I have something to discuss with you, Tadasu,” he began, in an unusually solemn tone. “I don't know how you feel about the lady who's been coming to visit us, but for various reasons — reasons that concern you as well as me — I'm thinking of marrying her. You'll be in the third grade this year, so I want you to try to understand what I'm saying. As you know, I had the greatest love for your mother. If she were only alive today I wouldn't want anyone else. Her death was a terrible blow to me — I couldn't get over it. But then I happened to meet this lady. You say you don't remember your mother's face very clearly, but you'll soon find that this lady resembles her in all sorts of ways. Of course no two people are quite alike, unless they're twins. That isn't what I mean by resembling her. I mean the impression she makes, the way she talks, the way she carries herself, her quiet, easygoing personality, sweet and gentle, and yet deep — that's why I say she's like your mother. If I hadn't met her I'd never have wanted to marry again. It's only because there is such a person that I've come to feel this way. Maybe your mother saw to it that I happened to find this lady, for your sake as well as mine. If she'll come and stay with us, she'll be a wonderful help to you as you grow up. And now that the second anniversary of your mother's death has passed, this seems like a proper time for marrying her. What do you think, Tadasu? You understand what I've been telling you, don't you?”

  Curiously enough, I had already given my consent long before he finished what he intended to say. Seeing my face light up, he added: “There's one thing more I'd like you to remember. When she comes you mustn't think of her as your second mother. Think that your mother has been away somewhere for a while and has just come home. Even if I didn't tell you so, you'd soon begin to look at it that way. Your two mothers will become one, with no distinction between them. Your first mother's name was Chinu, and your new mother's name is Chinu too. And in everything she says and does, your new mother will behave the way the first one did.”

  After that, Father stopped taking me in to sit beside him during his morning and evening worship at the memorial tablet. The time he spent reading the sutras gradually became shorter. Then one evening in April the wedding ceremony was held in the veranda room. Maybe there was a reception afterward, in some restaurant, but I have no remembrance of that. The ceremony itself was a very quiet affair: only a few close relatives attended on either side. From that day on Father called his bride “Chinu,” and I, having been told to call her “Mama,” found that the word came to my lips with surprising ease.

  For the past two or three years I had been accustomed to sleeping in the room next to Father's, but from the night my new mother arrived I went back to sharing the little room across the corridor with Okane. Father seemed to be truly happy, and began living the same kind of tranquil domestic life he had enjoyed with my first mother. Even Okane and the maids, who had been with us for years and who might have been expected to gossip and criticize their new mistress, were won over completely by her. Probably it was because of her natural kindness and warmth — anyway, they served her as faithfully as they had her predecessor.

  Our household returned to its old routine. Father would sit listening attentively while Mother played the koto, just as he used to when my real mother was alive; and he always had the gold-lacquered koto brought out for the occasion. In summer the three of us would have supper beside the pond. Father would take his beer to cool under the spout of the bamboo mortar. Mother would dangle her feet in the pond. As I looked at her feet through the water I found myself remembering my real mother's feet. I felt as if they were the same; or rather, to put it more accurately, whenever I caught a glimpse of my new mother's feet I recalled that those of my own mother, the memory of which had long ago faded, had had the same lovely shape.

  My stepmother also called the water plant we had in soup nenunawa, and told me how it was gathered at Mizoro Pond.

  “I imagine that sooner or later you'll hear at school about the Court anthologies,” she remarked one day. “Well, there's a poem in the earliest one that goes like this.” And she recited a poem which had a pun on the word nenunawa.

  As I have said before, I suspect that these incidents occurred during my real mother's lifetime and were only being repeated. No doubt Father had instructed my present mother how to behave, and was trying his best to confuse me about what my two mothers had said or done, so that I would identify them in my mind.

  One evening — I believe it was that autumn — Mother came into my room just as I was about to go to sleep with Okane.

  “Tadasu,” she asked, “do you remember how your mama used to nurse you till you were about four years old?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  And do you remember how she always sang lullabies to you?”

  “I remember.”

  “Wouldn't you still like to have your mama do those things?”

  “I suppose so. . .” I answered, flushing, aware that my heart had begun to pound.

  “Then come and sleep with me tonight.”

  She took my hand and led me to the veranda room. The bed was ready for sleeping, but Father had not yet come in. Mother herself was still fully dressed, still wearing her usual sash. The light was shining overhead. I could hear the clack of the bamboo mortar. Everything was the way it used to be. Mother got into bed first, propped her head on the wooden pillow (her hair was done up in an old-fashioned chignon), and lifted the covers for me to crawl in after her. I was already too tall to bury myself easily under her chin, but being face to face with her made me feel so awkward that I shrank as far as I could under the covers. When I did, the neckline of her kimono was just at my nose.

  Then I heard her whisper: “Tadasu, do you want some milk?” As she spoke, she bent her head down to look at me. Her cool hair brushed against my forehead.

  “You must've been awfully lonely, with no one but Okane to sleep with for such a long time. If you wanted to sleep with Mama, why didn't you say so earlier? Were you feeling shy about it?”

  I nodded.

  “What a funny little boy you are! Now, hurry up and see if you can find the milk!”

  I drew the top of her kimono open, pressed my face between her breasts, and played with her nipples with both hands. Because she was still looking down at me, a beam of light shone in over the edge of the bedclothes. I held one nipple and then the other in my mouth, sucking and using my tongue avidly to start the flow of milk. But as hard as I tried, it wouldn't come.

  “Ooh, th
at tickles!” Mother exclaimed.

  “I can't get a drop,” I told her. “Maybe I've forgotten how.”

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “Just be patient — I'll have a baby one of these days, and then there'll be lots of milk for you.”

  Even so, I wouldn't let go of her breasts, and kept sucking at them. I knew it was hopeless, but still I enjoyed the sensation of rolling around in my mouth those firm little buds at the tips of her soft, full breasts.

  “I'm terribly sorry — and you've worked so hard at it! Do you want to go on trying anyway?”

  Nodding my head, I kept on suckling. Once again, by some strange association, I seemed to drift among the mingled scents of hair oil and milk that had hovered in my mother's bosom so long ago. That warm, dimly white dream world — the world I thought had disappeared forever — had unexpectedly returned.

  Then Mother began to sing the old lullaby, in the very rhythm that I knew so well:

  “Go to sleep, go to sleep,

  Don't cry, there's a good child, go to sleep. . .”

  But in spite of her singing I was too excited to relax that night, and I went on sucking away greedily at her nipples. Within half a year, though I hadn't forgotten my real mother, I could no longer distinguish sharply between her and the present one. When I tried to remember my real mother's face, my stepmother's appeared before me; when I tried to remember her voice, my stepmother's echoed in my ears. Gradually the two images merged: I found it hard to believe that I had ever had a different mother. Everything turned out just as Father had planned.

  When I reached the age of twelve or thirteen, I began sleeping alone at night. But even then I would sometimes long to be held in my mother's bosom. “Mama, let me sleep with you!” I would beg. Drawing open her kimono, I would suck at her milkless breasts, and listen to her lullabies. And after drifting peacefully asleep I would awaken the next morning to find that in the meantime — I had no idea when — someone had carried me back and put me to bed alone in my own small room. Whenever I said: “Let me sleep with you!” Mother was glad to do as I wished, and Father made no objection.

  For a long time I didn't know where this second mother was born, what her background was, or how she happened to marry my father; such subjects were never brought up in my presence. I knew I might have found some clue in the city records, but I obeyed my father's orders: “Think of her as your real mother. You musn't take the attitude that she's a stepmother.” Also, I had some qualms about what I might find. However, when I was about to enter higher school I had to get an abstract from the records, and at that time I learned that my stepmother's real name was not Chinu but Tsuneko.

  The following year my nurse Okane, who was then fifty-seven, ended her long service with us and retired to her home town of Nagahama. One day in late October before she left I went along with her to visit the Shimogamo Shrine. She made an offering, prayed briefly before the main altar, and then said in a voice filled with emotion: “I don't know when I'll see this shrine again. . .” After that she suggested we go for a little walk through the shrine forest, toward the Aoi Bridge.

  As we were walking along she suddenly turned to me and said: “You know all about it, Tadasu, don't you?”

  “Know about what?” I asked, surprised.

  “If you haven't heard, I won't say any more. . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I wonder if I ought to tell you,” she said, hesitating. Then, still strangely evasive: “Tadasu, do you know much about your stepmother?”

  “No,” I answered. “I know that her real name is Tsuneko.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “I had to get an abstract from the city records last year.”

  “Is that really all you know?”

  “That's all. Father said I shouldn't be too inquisitive about her, and you didn't tell me anything either, so I decided not to ask.”

  “As long as I was working at your house I didn't want to mention it, but once I go back to the country I can't say when I'll set eyes on you again. So I think maybe I ought to tell you after all. You mustn't let your father hear about it, though.”

  “Never mind then,” I said, without really meaning it. “Don't tell me — I think I ought to do what Father says.”

  But she insisted. “Anyway, you're bound to find out sooner or later. It's something you ought to know.”

  I couldn't help being fascinated by her long, rambling story, told to me bit by bit as we walked along the shrine road.

  “I've only heard this at second hand, so I can't be sure,” Okane began, and went on to give me a full account of my stepmother's past.

  It seems that she was born into a Kyoto family that owned a large stationery shop in the Nijo district, specializing in decorative papers and writing brushes. But when she was about nine years old the family went bankrupt; by the time of Okane's story their shop no longer existed. At eleven, she was taken in as an apprentice geisha at one of the houses in Gion; from twelve to fifteen she entertained at parties as a dancer. You could probably have discovered the professional name she used at that time, the name of the geisha house, and so on; but Okane didn't know. Then, at fifteen, she is supposed to have had her debts paid off by the son of a wholesale cotton merchant, and to have been taken into the family as his bride. Opinions differ as to whether or not she was his legal wife, some declaring that her name was never entered in the official records.

  Anyhow, she enjoyed all the privileges of a wife, and for about three years lived comfortably as the young mistress of a prosperous household. But at eighteen, for one reason or another, she was divorced. Some say that family pressure drove her out; others that her dissipated husband simply tired of her. No doubt she received a considerable sum of money at the time, but she went back to her parents' drab little house in Rokujo, turned the upstairs room into a studio, and made her living by teaching flower arrangement and the tea ceremony to the young women of the neighborhood.

  Apparently it was during those days that my father became acquainted with her. But no one knew how he happened to meet her, or where they were seeing each other before she came to Heron's Nest as his bride. Two and a half years passed from the time of my mother's death until father's second marriage. As vividly as the girl may have reminded him of his lost wife, he could hardly have fallen in love with her less than a year after the death of the woman he had so much adored; probably he made his mind up only a few months before the wedding took place. His first wife had died at twenty-two; his second was twenty when she married him; father himself was thirty-three, thirteen years her senior; and I, at eight, was almost that much younger.

  Learning about my stepmother's background aroused strong curiosity in me, along with all sorts of other feelings. I had never dreamed that she was once a professional entertainer in Gion. Of course she was very different from the ordinary girl of that kind: she came from a respectable family, and had left the gay quarter after only a few years to take up the life of the young mistress of a well-to-do household, during which time she seems to have acquired a number of polite feminine accomplishments. Yet I had to admire her for preserving her unaffected charm and graciousness, in spite of having been a Gion dancer. But what of the evident refinement of her voice, that soft speech in the tradition of the old Kyoto merchant class? Even if she had only spent two or three years in Gion one would expect to find some trace of it in her speech. Did her first husband and his parents make a point of correcting her?

  I suppose it was natural for my father, at a time when he was sad and lonely, to be attracted by such a woman. And it was natural, too, for him to come to believe that a woman like her would have all the fine qualities of his former wife and could help me forget the sorrow of having lost my mother. I began to realize how much thought he had given to this, not merely for his own sake but for mine. Even if my stepmother shared his wish to make me think of my two mothers as a single woman, it was his own extraordinary effort that enabled him to mold he
r in the image of my real mother. I could see that the love he lavished on my stepmother and me only strengthened his love for his first wife all the more. And so, while it might seem that exposing the secrets of my new mother's earlier life had frustrated all of Father's patient efforts, the result was to deepen my gratitude to him and my respect for my stepmother.

  After Okane left we added another maid, so that there were four in all. And in January of the following year I learned that Mother was pregnant. It was in the eleventh year of her marriage to my father. Since she had never had a child before, even by her former husband, both Father and she seemed to be surprised that such a thing could happen, after all these years.

  “I feel ashamed to be getting big like this, at my age,” she used to say. Or again: “When you're past thirty it's hard to give birth for the first time, I hear.” Both Mother and Father had concentrated all their parental love on me, and perhaps they worried about my reaction to this event. If they did, they needn't have: I cannot describe how pleased I was to think that, after all these years as an only child, I was about to have a little brother or sister. I suppose, too, that Father's heart was darkened now and then by the ominous memory of my first mother's death in pregnancy. But what struck me as odd was that neither Father nor Mother seemed to want to bring up the matter; I began to notice that they looked strangely gloomy whenever the subject was mentioned.

  “Since I have Tadasu I don't need another child,” she would say, half-jokingly. “I'm too old to have a baby.” Knowing her as I did, I thought it unlikely that she said such a thing merely to hide her embarrassment at being pregnant.