The Plum Rains and Other Stories (2 page)

Why’s that like that?

I don’t know, Bashō said. Tufts of summer grass sprouted up among the curved ivory bows of the child’s rib box. Probably he died here.

I told you this wasn’t a good way!

The jawbone was missing; and the bowl of the skull had twisted off to one side, as if when sliding down onto his
death-glide
the child had wished to look at something other than what he had been seeing.

Old Master Bashō knelt beside the bone scatter. He
removed
his round travel hat and bent forward to observe what proved to be a handful of mouse pups nestled within the cup of the brain case, pink and hairless little newborns, their tiny toes perfect, tiny tails like curved pink filaments, lovely little breathers without blemish bedded on shreds of the dead child’s garments that had been dragged inside by mouse parents intent on the comfort of their progeny.

There’s something written there, Chibi-kun said, unwilling to touch what he’d found.

Words had been inked onto a piece of durable fabric
attached
to the dead child’s tarsus.

The Old Master was concerned with the explanations men devised to soothe themselves because he himself needed
soothing
; and he read out the declaration that had been dictated by starving parents to some local priest or other mountain literate, asserting that this child entrusted here to his fate was a good child, obedient and loved, and that he had been relegated to this desolation through no fault of his own but simply because he was the weakest member of a despairing family that had no hope for succour or salvation. Whosoever wanted him was hereby authorised to adopt him as their own. The child would answer to the name ‘Saburō’ although another name could be attached if his finder preferred.

Do you think they really believed someone would take the child?

Perhaps they tried to believe it.

Could they have just walked away? Chibi-kun was outraged by it. With the child’s sobs in their ears? Could a mother do that? Turn her back? With the little child holding out his little arms and pleading to be picked up and carried with them?

The Old Master remained as he was. I don’t know.

A wretched place to die, Chibi-kun said, letting his anger become disgust and his disgust become scorn. These wretched people, these stupid ugly victims that die so easily…

But Old Master Bashō only reached out to the red-orange blossoms of the child’s quince, blazing there in the windy
sunlight
with all the fragility and tenacity of being. He took a spray in his hand, and he held it then let it go.

T
HE
P
LANTAIN

S
ilk Merchant Kichiji slid open the side panel on his palanquin. Has it come yet?

It has, Little Ohasu said, and she fell in at the rear of the file of attendants as the silk merchant was carried up the
snow-covered
hill to Bashō’s gate.

Kichiji had purchased this cottage for his poetry teacher, judging it large enough for group poetry sessions but not so large as to jeopardise Old Master Bashō’s reputation for austerity. Kichiji had also outfitted the cottage with all the cushions and quilts and crockery required for domestic life, making
selections
that reflected his own good taste.

The silk merchant was a large and fleshy man, much
troubled
by chilblains in winter, and he waited until his palanquin bearers had found an easy place for him to dismount.

So there it is, Kichiji said; and Little Ohasu nodded,
shivering
from the cold, her silk robe and satin cloak much too thin for the season.

I said, there it is.

Yes, said Ohasu quickly. That is indeed it.

A large plantain rested on a bullock dray. Its fronds had been bundled up and tied with rice-straw ropes. Another rope was wound around and around on its root-ball and decorated
with a few celebratory sprigs of fern and strips of white blessing paper cunningly folded.

Ohasu was afraid of large animals. And although the bullock stood placidly, its breath issuing from wet black nostrils in quick vapourous bursts that seemed incongruous for such a massive and torpid beast, she detoured widely around it, lifting her skirts and tramping through the snow on the roadside.

The gardeners had scraped away the snow just inside the front gate and built a bonfire to cover an area slightly wider than they would need. The head gardener told the silk merchant that his request was peculiar. It did, however, provide an opportunity for him to instruct his apprentices in the method of setting large plants in winter. You can tell them in words. But they’re useless until they’ve done it with their own hands.

Kichiji smiled benignly but said nothing.

The gardeners had a straw-mat to sit on, but the afternoon was too cold so they stood beside the fire flapping their arms and stomping their feet as they waited for the frozen earth to loosen.

Is the Old Master not here? asked Kichiji.

Probably he’s inside, said Ohasu, and she stuffed her hands more deeply into her sleeves.

A scrawny little pleasure girl prone to melancholy, Ohasu was not sought after by the spendthrifts and gallants whose
lurid
exploits set the pace in the entertainment quarters of New Yoshiwara, although her skill with words made her a suitable choice for the less demanding social requirements of poets. You said to wait at the corner so I did, she said.

The gardeners had brought iron thrust-bars to crack open the frozen soil, and a pair of shovels with flat steel blades. They studied the low sky like discomfort-connoisseurs wondering how long the snow would hold off. The gardeners had a cask of liquid manure mixed with leaf mould. Beside it was a smaller
cask of rice wine, and they amused each other by speculating on the dismay they would feel should one container be mistaken for the other.

Old Master Bashō came outside, draped with an additional padded robe and wearing a scholar’s cap on his bald head. It’s good of you to come, said the old poet. Kichiji had also funded the publication of the group’s linked poetry anthology. One of his own modest efforts had been included, albeit in a form
rewritten
by the Old Master. And on such a frigid day, Bashō said.

It is that, said Kichiji; and Little Ohasu stood between the two men, looking from one to the other, her teeth chattering in confirmation of the cold.

The gardeners had put together a smaller fire near the ground mat and arranged rocks beside it to support their wine kettle. It takes the chill off, said the head gardener. They warmed the drinking cups, too, because working in the cold season
requires
preparations.

Across the river, Edo lay blanketed under the fresh snowfall. Pale umbilicals of smoke from ten thousand kitchen fires rose into the white sky that lowered over the shogun’s city like an immense medusa, and far in the distance the massive cone of Mount Fuji glowed whitely, a slender banner of cloud trailing away from its peak.

They poured out the wine when it was ready, and the Old Master and Kichiji each accepted a cup.

With all respect, said the head gardener, I was surprised to hear that such a plant as this had been requested. You would have been better off with a plum or a peach. The climate’s too cold for a plantain. It won’t bear fruit. And the wind off the river will tear the leaves.

Our teacher had a plantain near the gate of his previous
cottage
, said Kichiji. It is how our poetry group is known.

That may be so. The head gardener sipped at his wine, pleased with the opportunity to display his expertise.
Nevertheless
, you’ll get no shade, the wood’s useless, and the flowers are just little green knots. No one will even notice them.

We poets will, said Kichiji smugly.

But couldn’t you be known as the peach tree group? That way you’d get a good name plus fruit in summer.

Once the fire had died away, the gardeners began
cracking
down through the soil, prying up frozen clods and breaking them apart until they had reached below the frost line and could dig more freely. They allowed ash from the fire to mix in with the loose dirt at the bottom of the hole then poured in a layer of the compost mixture.

Don’t put the wine in! one cautioned, and the others all laughed.

K
ICHIJI JOINED
O
LD
M
ASTER
B
ASH
ō
beside his brazier. You will have noticed that I brought a girl with me, he said.

Ohasu bowed formally in acknowledgement of what seemed like an introduction, but she was ignored. To cover her
embarrassment
, she placed a water basin on the iron trivet and began heating a flask of rice wine. She found titbits in a stacked-box in the pantry and arranged the best ones nicely on a platter.

The day before, Ohasu had been told that her presence would be required at the home of the great poet. She sat up half the night preparing a few poetic ideas of her own in celebration of the arrival of the plantain, but neither man seemed interested in composing a linked poem, and she couldn’t suggest it herself.

As the afternoon settled into shadows, the silk merchant and the old poet talked of various things, the warmth and the wine creating a pleasant mood; and in a burst of enthusiasm that
seemed spontaneous but wasn’t, Kichiji recommended that the Old Master keep Ohasu permanently.

Why would I want her?

She’s literate, said Kichiji. It’s rare in a girl.

The Old Master’s cheeks were pink and his small eyes closed to slits. She must have her own life in the pleasure quarters.

No kind of life at all, said Kichiji. She would be more
useful
here. He finished his cup, and Ohasu poured it full for him again then turned with the flask to wait for the Old Master to finish his.

This cottage is very small.

She’s small herself, declared Kichiji. Just look at her.

Neither man did.

That two-mat room off the scullery could be cleaned out, Kichiji said. Her bedding would fit in the cubby there, and her robes could be hung from hooks embedded in the wall. Places could be found for her decorations and cosmetics and whatever other little possessions she has. Nothing more need be done for her.

I don’t see the reason for it.

We worry that you’re too much on your own.

The old haikai poet held up his cup to be refilled. The
loneliness
of solitude seemed less of a burden to him than did the loneliness he felt when in the company of others; and while he recognised his withdrawal as a form of selfishness, he saw no alternative for it. What he wanted was to look at the things of the world steadily enough to see them as they really were. But he also wanted to record his impressions, and the words he used entangled him in distortions so that these attempts at
preservation
left him dissatisfied.

I know the teahouse that holds her contract, said the silk merchant. Reaching an agreement will be a simple matter.

In the end, Old Master Bashō reluctantly agreed to consider taking possession of Ohasu; and after the silk merchant and the little pleasure girl had finally departed, he went outside again to view his new acquisition.

The plantain’s long fronds shone grey-green in the winter twilight. Snow crystals had collected in the central rosette of the plant, and bits of ice skittered down the broad fleshy leaves with a sound like mice scampering across a dry ceiling. The sour tang of liquid manure rising coldly to his nostrils was also part of it for him, of what he wished from it; and the old poet waited with the plant then walked out through his brushwood gate and stood looking down the empty road. What would remain after he died? A few books, a few paintings, a collection of words arranged and rearranged, a hoard of imitators squabbling over continuity, and one or two followers who would struggle to trace those skeins of him which twisted similarly within themselves, and who would sooner or later conclude that he too had been little better than a fraud.

But then he’d always known that, and he decided he would wait for a couple of days before refusing the silk merchant’s
offer
.

LITTLE
O
HASU SPENT THAT NIGHT WITH
a visitor who had not requested her. He was a rice broker from Sakai City come to Edo to track down his son, who had absconded after looting the family strongbox. The rice broker said he didn’t want
entertainment
, but he didn’t want to be alone, either. He had purchased a night in the pleasure quarters on the understanding that it would be shared. He didn’t care with whom.

Ohasu poured his wine and served his food and drank with him although she wasn’t much of a drinker. The rice broker
didn’t want to talk about his son’s betrayal. He didn’t want to talk about Edo, either, or what life was like in Sakai, or anything else; so Ohasu chatted away, avoiding the usual pleasure-quarters gossip about tales of carnal audacity for fear that his son’s motives might be linked to some such adventures; and as the rice broker showed no interest in finger games or smutty tunes or comic dances, she soon exhausted familiar topics and blurted out that he might be one of her last visitors.

So you are leaving this life? And did you also find it easy to abandon your parents’ home and come here?

Ohasu said she might have an opportunity to become the housekeeper for a famous
haikai
poet. It was a world of words that she had long wished to –

Not what I asked, said the rice broker harshly.

I did leave my home. And it was not easy for me. Ohasu told him she had been lonely as a child because her family was even poorer than the others in their village, and it was poverty that had resulted in her being sold to the pleasure quarters. She was small for her age, and she had been mocked in her village because of her fondness for insects. Beetles, butterflies, crickets, any little being that crawled or fluttered had pleased her. Even the giant stag beetles village boys pitted against each other in bug sumo bouts found favour in her eyes; and she would keep her own specimens in cages formed from bamboo twigs,
bringing
them out when no one else was around for the pleasure of watching as they went about their affairs.

She told him how she had loved the sound of bell crickets in autumn, how she had followed butterflies in spring and cicadas in summer, and how she had searched for winter spiders
clinging
to life under the frozen eaves of their poor dwelling.

But what I loved best were caterpillars, Ohasu said, the fuzzy green ones with tufts of bristles on their backs. She told him how she used to sit near the bushes that her favourites chose
for their cocoons and watch them spinning the protection they created for themselves.

The rice broker drank sullenly and held his cup out to be filled.

Ohasu told him that her family was too poor to afford
hina
dolls for the girls’ festival so she had made her own out of
flowers
and twigs and bits of moss. She would set them up on a rock shelf in a forest dell, and invite insect guests to view her dolls, selecting beetles or mantises that could be compelled to respond in an orderly manner, and marching them past her display using twigs to guide them.

The rice broker from Sakai sat listening to Ohasu’s chatter. He found no pleasure in it, for his son’s betrayal felt like the stab of a sneak assassin.