To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (24 page)

"I wouldn't want to either—to study
that.
But you're so much more learned than my father. I truly admire you for it."

"Don't be fresh!"

"I'm telling the truth! No matter what I ask, you never fail to give me an answer."

As they were talking, the maid entered to hand Matsumoto something that looked like a letter of introduction. "A gentleman has just come with this," she said.

Matsumoto stood up laughing. "Wait here, Chiyoko. I have something interesting to tell you."

"Not if it's that horrible stuff you told me the other day—asking me to learn a ridiculous number of foreign tobacco brand-names!"

Without responding, Matsumoto went out toward the drawing room. Chiyoko returned to the living room. Someone had already put on the electric lamps, since the daylight coming through the heavy downpour was now scant. Blue flames from the gas burning busily on two portable stoves in the kitchen indicated that supper preparations had begun. Soon the children sat down facing one another on either side of the large table. It was customary for Yoiko to be fed by a maid apart from the family, but Chiyoko took the maid's role that evening. Carrying a tray with a petite vermilion-lacquered bowl of rice porridge and a plate of cooked fish on it, she led the child into the small six-mat room used mainly for changing clothes, a room just off the living room. Two chests of drawers stood against the wall as did a full-length mirror, in front of which Chiyoko placed the tray containing the toy-like bowl and the porcelain dish.

"All right, Yoiko-san, here's your supper, what you've been waiting for."

With each spoonful of rice porridge that Chiyoko put into Yoiko's mouth, the child was pressed into saying things like "Umm-mm!" and "More, more!" Finally she insisted on feeding herself and took the spoon from Chiyoko, who carefully taught her how to hold it. Yoiko, who could of course pronounce only the simplest short words, inclined her flattish ricecake-like head and asked, "So? Like so?" each time she was told she was holding the spoon wrong. Amused over how she said it, Chiyoko made her repeat the words again and again.

As the child began to say the phrase yet another time, her big eyes looking slightly sideways at Chiyoko, she suddenly let her spoon fall and dropped face down in front of Chiyoko's knees.

"What are you doing?" Unaware that anything was wrong, Chiyoko lifted the child in her arms. But she felt the body go limp, like that of a sleeping child, and cried aloud, "Yoiko-san! Yoiko-san!"

Yoiko lay propped on Chiyoko's lap with her eyes half-closed and her mouth half-open as though she had dozed off. Chiyoko patted her on the back a few times, but it produced no effect.

"Auntie, come quickly! Something awful has happened!"

The child's mother flung aside her chopsticks and rice bowl and ran noisily into the room. "What is it?" she cried, turning Yoiko's face directly up under the electric bulb. Already the lips were purplish. She held her palm over the child's mouth but felt no breathing. In a choked, agonized voice, she had the maid fetch a damp towel. Placing it on Yoiko's forehead, she asked Chiyoko whether there was any pulse.

Chiyoko instantly clasped the tiny wrist but did not know where to feel for the pulse. Pale and beginning to cry, she said, "Auntie, what can we do?"

The mother ordered the other children, who were standing there stunned, to hurry and call their father. All four ran to the drawing room. Soon after their footsteps ceased at the end of the hallway, Matsumoto came in, a baffled look on his face.

"What happened?" he said, leaning over his wife and Chiyoko and peering down at Yoiko. A single glance at the child was enough to make him frown.

"The doctor . . ."

He wasted no time in arriving. "There's something strange about the symptoms," he said, immediately giving the child an injection. But there was no change.

"Is it hopeless?" This painfully strained question passed the father's tightly closed lips.

The eyes of the three, filled with extraordinary light as if hoping against hope, were fixed on the doctor. He had been looking into the child's eyes with a speculum and now, when asked this question, began rolling up Yoiko's kimono to examine her further.

"There's nothing I can do. The pupils and anus are dilated. I'm very sorry."

In spite of his words, he injected another drug into the region of the child's heart. As he had expected, it did nothing for her. When Matsumoto saw the needle pierce his tiny daughter's almost transparently clear skin, he knitted his brows in spite of himself.

Chiyoko's eyes welled with tears, which fell to her lap.

"What caused it?" asked Matsumoto.

"It's strange, very strange. No matter how I analyze it," said the doctor, meditating.

"How about a mustard bath?" said Matsumoto, offering a layman's suggestion.

"I have no objection." The doctor's response was immediate, but his face showed no sign of encouragement.

Soon a washtub filled with steaming water was brought in, and a bag of mustard was emptied into it. The mother and Chiyoko silently removed Yoiko's kimono. The doctor, patting his hand onto the hot water, cautioned, "Pour in a little more cold so she doesn't get scalded."

The doctor held Yoiko in his arms and placed her into the bath for several minutes. In breathless suspense the three others watched the color of the child's soft skin. "This is enough. If it's too long . . ." he said and lifted the child from the tub.

The mother took the infant in her hands, drying her carefully with a towel before putting her clothing back on. But she remained as limp as ever, showing no sign of change. "Let's leave her lying as she is for a while," the mother said, casting a sad glance at her husband.

Saying simply "All right," Matsumoto returned to the drawing room and saw his visitor off at the entrance.

Presently a small pillow and bedding were taken from the closet. Seeing the child lying there as though she had fallen asleep as peacefully as she usually did at night, Chiyoko broke down, sobbing hysterically. "Oh, what have I done!"

"It's not your fault, Chiyo-chan."

"But I was the one feeding her. I must beg forgiveness from my aunt and uncle!"

In faltering words Chiyoko related again and again how the child looked her usual self just a while ago when she had been helping her eat.

"And still, it's so odd," Matsumoto said, his arms folded. "Come, Osen," he urged, "it's too sad leaving her lying here. Let's carry her into the drawing room."

Chiyoko helped move the bedding.

Gently they laid the infant in bed with her head to the north, as custom demanded. The place in the room was suitable, though open to view, as they did not have the proper folding screen for the occasion. Osen brought in from the living room a balloon Yoiko had been playing with in the morning and placed it beside the pillow. A bleached cotton cloth was put over Yoiko's face. Often Chiyoko uncovered it to observe the child, and often she cried.

"Just look," Osen sobbed, her nose clogged as she glanced back to her husband. "Her face is as lovely as a Kannon-sama's."

"Mm," Matsumoto said, peering at the child's face without moving from his seat.

Soon a plain wooden desk was set down, and a twig of anise, an incense burner, and white dumplings were arranged on it. When they saw the feeble light from the candles, the three adults were struck for the first time with the lonely feeling that a great distance now separated them from Yoiko, who would never awaken. Each in turn lit an incense stick. The odor from the burning incense stimulated the nostrils of the three, drawn into a quite different world from the one they had been in two hours ago. The children had been sent to bed early as usual except that the eldest, Sakiko, would not leave the spot where the incense was burning.

"You go to bed too," her mother said.

"But no one has come yet from Uchisaiwaicho or Kanda."

"They'll be here soon. It's all right. You can go to bed before they get here."

Sakiko went out to the corridor, but she looked back and beckoned Chiyoko. When Chiyoko came out, the girl whispered to be taken to the toilet. She was afraid because the room had no light. With a match Chiyoko kindled a hand lamp and turned the corner of the corridor with Sakiko. On the way back Chiyoko happened to glance into the servants' room, where in undertones the kitchen maid was talking over the brazier with a rick-shawman patronized by the family. She's probably giving him a detailed account, thought Chiyoko. The other maid was wiping trays in the living room, readying teacups in preparation for visitors.

Before long a few of the relatives who had been informed of the news came to pay their condolences. Some of the visitors left soon, promising their attendance at the funeral. To each visitor Chiyoko repeated her account of Yoiko's last moments, which had come on so suddenly. After midnight Osen brought in a portable warmer for those keeping the wake, but none would use it. The Matsumotos were exhorted to retire and, against their will, did so. Afterward Chiyoko kept the incense fresh and burning continuously by adding new sticks to those that had burned down. The rain had not yet stopped, but she no longer heard the sound of the downpour striking the plantain leaves. Rather, the sound on the zinc-roofed eaves sent into her ears the ceaseless drops of a desolate and lonely sadness. From time to time until the dawn broke, she took the cloth from Yoiko's face and sobbed.

The next day all the women present helped sew a hemp kimono in which to clothe Yoiko. The little sleeves and kimono skirt went round from hand to hand among the women, including Momoyoko, who had arrived from Uchisaiwaicho, and two wives from neighborhood families on friendly terms with the Matsumotos. Chiyoko carried in sheets of paper, a brush, and an inkstone to those gathered there, asking each to write on a single sheet the six Chinese characters
Na-mu A-mi-da Butsu.
When she came to Sunaga, she said, "Please, Ichi-san, copy some too."

"What are you going to do with them?" he asked with a puzzled look on his face as he took the brush and paper.

"Write as many of the characters as you can, as small as you can, all over the paper. Later we'll cut it into small strips, each with the six characters on it, and they'll be scattered into the coffin."

Everyone sat formally writing the prayer for Buddha's mercy. "Don't look at me while I'm writing," said Sakiko, screening her paper with her kimono sleeve as she composed her crooked strokes. The ten-year-old son said that he would write his prayer in
kana.
He copied several lines, all in syllabary letters as in a telegram.

In the afternoon just before Yoiko's body was to be placed into the coffin, Matsumoto told Chiyoko to dress it in the newly sewn kimono. Chiyoko, so choked with tears that she was unable to reply, took off Yoiko's clothes and raised the cold naked body in her arms. All over the child's back were purple spots. When it had been changed into its hemp kimono, Osen passed a small string of beads around its folded hands. A small braided hat and an equally small pair of straw sandals were placed into the coffin, as were the pair of red woolen socks that Yoiko had worn until the evening before. At once there drifted before Chiyoko's eyes the image of the dangling tassels attached to the strings of those socks. All the toys that had been given to the child were crowded into the space at the child's head and feet. And last of all, over the body were strewn like piles of snow the strips of paper containing the prayer to Buddha. Then the lid of the coffin was put into place, and a cloth of white figured satin was placed gently over it.