After descending the hill from the rest house and crossing a large stone bridge, Asako and Natsuji came to the Pine Lute Pavilion.
The bridge was comprised of a single piece of Shirakawa stone more than five meters long and so was called the Shirakawa Bridge. It was said to have been presented as a gift by the feudal lord Katō Samanosuke.
Natsuji paused atop it, with Asako quickly following suit.
He wanted to ask her to stay where she was for a moment so that he could contemplate her figure atop the bridge, but he didn’t dare express that wish.
“Being surrounded by all these rocks makes your heart feel pretty heavy, don’t you think?” he said.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Asako responded vaguely.
“I don’t know much about rock arrangements. I wonder if this is the kind of design Kobori Enshū was known for?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“There must have been a lot of attention paid to the rock arrangements around here. I don’t know if you could call it severe or poignant, but if you ask me, this kind of obsessive attention to detail has to be due to a nervous temperament. Just standing here, it’s like these stones are all grating against my nerves. They’re so craggy and sharp.”
“They’re just rocks,” Asako said lightly.
“No, they’re more than that. They’re laid out this way to express something. Maybe it’s because people like you and me can’t imagine what it means to create beauty simply by positioning natural rocks on top of natural ground, but these arrangements, supposed to be so rich in meaning, just end up feeling so suffocating. People like us don’t have an eye for garden aesthetics. But I suppose that applies to a lot of gardens, not just this one. Maybe this one is just a little more overwrought than usual.”
“Don’t you think you might be paying too much attention to the rock arrangements?”
Natsuji glanced back at Asako. “The moment I stood on this stone bridge and saw the rocks laid out around us, I was struck by a feeling that we shouldn’t cross to the other side. And I wondered just who would look most natural standing on this bridge in the middle of this rock arrangement.”
“That would be Prince Katsura, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe someone from the prince’s era? But then I thought the person who I most wanted to see standing on it was you, Asako.”
“Oh?” Blushing, she tried to conceal herself behind Natsuji’s back.
“I really did think so,” he insisted.
“But why? You’re embarrassing me.”
“And then it occurred to me that these aren’t just stones.”
“They aren’t?”
“We were talking about the bridge earlier. The bridge between my dead brother and your sister?”
“Yes.”
“That was a formless bridge, a bridge of the heart, I suppose you could say; but this, this is a bridge of stone, a bridge of beauty, one that has been standing here for more than three hundred years. If this kind of bridge could exist between two souls…”
“A bridge of stone? Wouldn’t that be awful, building a stone bridge over your heart? I would prefer a rainbow bridge.”
“Well, a bridge between two souls might well be a rainbow, yes.”
“But this stone bridge might also be linking two hearts, you know?”
“You may be right. It was built as an expression of art and beauty.”
“Yes. They say Prince Toshihito, the first Prince Katsura, read from The Tale of Genji every day and loved it so much he had this villa modeled on it. The area around the Pine Lute Pavilion is supposed to resemble Akashi Bay.”
“It doesn’t look much like the coast at Akashi, though, what with all those weird craggy rocks.”
“That’s what it says in the guidebook. And since Prince Toshihito’s wife was born in Tango Province, he modeled this on the Bridge of Heaven there.”
Natsuji glanced over at the strip of land as he crossed the stone bridge.
They stepped under the deep eaves of the Pine Lute Pavilion and entered the main building through the Second Room.
There, they sat down and gazed for a time at the rocks near the bridge.
Next, they went to the adjoining tearoom, where they sat for a time too.
After the tearoom, they passed again through the Second Room as they entered the First Room.
The floor and walls from the tokonoma alcove to the fusuma panels were covered in a checkered green-and-blue mulberry design combined with a Kaga votive calligraphy, a renowned, bold display of ingenuity, flamboyant and eccentric in such a sober environment.
Next, the two visitors stepped onto a protruding covered veranda, where the charcoal stove and the shelves for the tea ceremony utensils were installed, and sat in silence.
The pond wrapped around the Pine Lute Pavilion from right to left.
However, both sides looked different when viewed from the First Room.
On the right side, past the shelves for the tea utensils, the arrangement of the rocks next to the stone bridge stood out even more than the water itself; while on the left, the pond in the direction of Hotarudani was deep and stagnant, and the fact that the stones were hidden from sight made the surface seem all the vaster.
Natsuji wondered whether the grating design of the rock arrangement in the one part of the garden contributed to making the overall landscape seem more tightly defined, but he couldn’t tell for sure.
“It’s kind of strange, being here like this, don’t you think?” he said.
Asako stared across the pond to avoid meeting his gaze.
To either side of the tall cedars were the Old Hall and the Moon Wave Pavilion.
The branches of those cedars had withered with the passing of the seasons, but the hedge in front of the Moon Wave Pavilion was lush with young, tender leaves.
Since returning to Tōkyō, Asako’s impressions of the Katsura Imperial Villa had only grown stronger.
That was partly because she had spoken to her father about her visit and learned about all the qualities for which it was so renowned.
She had also retrieved all the reference texts and photo books that discussed the villa from his bookshelf, piling them up on her desk.
She read through each and every one of them.
That was a characteristic trait of hers. After visiting the Hōryūji Temple in Nara, for example, she greedily devoured as many books as she could find about it. It was the same with music. Once, returning home after listening to a Mozart performance, she had lost herself in research on the European composer.
“There’s no point reading so much about it now. You should have prepared beforehand. Knowing you, you’ll probably hire someone to investigate your boyfriend’s background only after you end up marrying him,” Momoko joked.
Her father, however, had a great fondness for Asako’s sense of drive and focus, also attributing to this the surprising extent to which she was able to reproduce at home rare dishes that they had enjoyed at restaurants.
It was this habit of hers that prompted her to consume every piece of information that she could find about the Katsura Imperial Villa.
Momoko, however, viewed her relentless reading through a lens of doubt.
Asako showed her sister a photograph of the First Room in the New Hall, pointing to the elevated stage where the most senior guests and their retinues would sit. “I sat in here for a few minutes too.”
“Oh? With Natsuji?”
But Asako didn’t notice the sarcasm in her sister’s voice. “No, he didn’t come in. I sat with my legs hanging over the edge beneath the window here, to look out onto the garden.”
The First Room was nine tatami mats in size, with the elevated stage comprising a third of that area. The coffered ceiling hung lower above the stage than it did the rest of the room. On the back wall were the famous Katsura Shelves, a staggered group of ornamental brackets renowned as one of the Three Unrivaled Shelves of Old Kyōto.
The upper part of the room was modeled after an extended tokonoma alcove, Asako explained.
A single piece of Karakuwa wood fitted close to the floor in front of the window served as a reading desk. Beneath the desk was another small window that could be opened during the summer to let in a cool breeze.
Asako had sat at that desk, opening the shōji screen at the window from the inside while Natsuji opened the door from the outside.
The young leaves of the garden flowed into her field of vision. The trees, however, were far from the window, the view a little too bright and sparse.
“Don’t you think it’s strange, looking at a photograph like this and remembering how I sat right here?” Asako asked her sister.
“I suppose so,” Momoko answered vaguely. “But you’re not in the photo there.”
“Of course not!” Asako laughed. “What are you saying? You should have come with us.”
Though she seldom used it, Momoko was sitting in front of the sewing machine.
Asako rose to her feet and glanced at the photographs next to the machine.
“But you know, even after we went to the Katsura Imperial Villa, you were all that Natsuji and I could talk about.”
“Me?”
“Yes, and his brother too.”
“Oh?” Momoko responded coldly. “I should have guessed. How mortifying.”
“We didn’t say anything bad, not about you or Keita.”
“That’s what’s so unpleasant about it. You would have acted like the attentive, loving sister you are and said only nice things.”
“You’re awful.”
“And Natsuji, I’m sure, must have spoken well about Keita too.”
“Of course.”
“You can both say what you like, but if you were trying to get to the truth, you failed.”
“We weren’t pretending to know what happened, or to understand how you felt.”
“I wonder.” Momoko slammed her foot down on the sewing machine pedal, then took the sleeves of the dress that she was adjusting and threw them over the photograph. “If you’re going to talk about me with Natsuji, you could at least do so with a cool head, like you would if you were speaking about a stranger. I don’t appreciate your sympathy. I don’t need you to act like you understand.”
Asako stared at her sister’s hands in silence as they moved about her sewing.
“What you think you understand is nothing more than your own imaginings.” Momoko pressed her trembling fingertips against the fabric. “I can only guess what you said, but I’m sure you spoke to Natsuji in the same tone you use when you’re talking about me with Father.”
“Momoko!”
“What? Only your tears will make me stop now, Asako. There’s nothing wrong with being kind, but there are times when a woman’s kindness can be entirely self-indulgent. Your kindness is directed only at yourself. Even when you’re trying to soothe Father and me, acting like you’re trying to save us.”
“To save you? I’ve never thought like that.”
“But you’ve certainly saved Father. He’s a decent man. Maybe it’s strange for a daughter to say that about her own father, and yet…”
“It’s true.”
“I’m cynical, twisted. He, on the other hand, is so pure that no one seeking your hand in marriage would ever be good enough for him.”
Asako was taken aback.
“A father like that will never be able to help his daughter’s feelings mature. You shouldn’t spend so much time with him, indulging your kindness. It won’t be long before you realize the gentler a woman’s soul, the greater the depths of pain and suffering she falls into.” Momoko stopped the machine for a moment. “Do you think I’m saying this out of jealousy?”
Asako, staring down at her sister’s hair, shook her head.
Momoko continued her sewing. “I’m terribly jealous, actually. I don’t know what you and Natsuji said about Keita and me at the villa. But lately, I’ve started to think I shouldn’t have let him go off to die in the war. It would have been better if I had killed him myself.”
To Asako, that sounded like an expression of love for Keita.
Yet Momoko continued, “Not because I still love him. Because I hate him.”
Asako didn’t dare respond.
“And my mother too; rather than ending her own life, she should have killed Father. No one should have to die just because they can’t marry someone. They would be better off killing them instead. You should keep that in mind too, Asako.”
“What has come over you, Momoko?”
“It’s the strangest thing. If my mother had killed Father, you would never have been born. Would you? And it would have been the same outcome if my mother had married him instead. It makes you wonder.”
Asako shuddered.
It was true, she realized; if Momoko’s mother hadn’t ended her own life and had instead married their father, she would most likely never have been born. But why was Momoko coming out with all these horrible thoughts?
Was she spitting out the arrows of hatred and resentment that had long poisoned her heart?
Asako felt as though she had been cast down upon a cold, hard surface.
She couldn’t understand why her sister was so angry that she had spoken with Keita’s brother.
She left Momoko’s side and sat down on her bed.
They shared a large Western-style room on the second floor of the house, around ten tatami mats in size, filled with furniture ranging from a mirror to the sewing machine.
“Good night, Asako. Am I bothering you?” Momoko asked. “I’m almost done. I’ve already attached one sleeve.”
Asako slowly let her hand fall to the bedsheet.
“You’re inviting Natsuji over next Sunday, aren’t you? Because of how nice he and his father were to us in Kyōto? Just so you know, I won’t be home. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. It’s humiliating for me just to be around him. Apparently, Father told Mr. Aoki about our Kyōto sister when he paid him a visit. But still he won’t say anything to us. He didn’t even mention her to you, did he?” Hammering the pedal of the sewing machine, without waiting for Asako to respond, she continued, “When I heard, I wished I had never gone to Kyōto. We were supposed to be visiting as a family, but we all ended up going our separate ways. Father didn’t tell you, did he, that he mentioned how considerate you are to a friend of his? Not just toward him and me, but to our Kyōto sister too? No, I don’t want to see Natsuji here, not in this house. You probably think I’m saying this out of concern for Father, but I’m not. It’s jealousy, that’s all. I may doubt love, but I don’t doubt jealousy.”
Her heart panged, yet Asako felt as though she had caught the faintest glimpse of her sister’s innermost feelings.
She changed into her nightgown and lay down.
As she closed her eyes, she remembered her sister’s cruel words.
But she didn’t cry.
“Good night,” she said.
Momoko had scolded her, claiming that she was always trying to soothe and help both her and her father. Yet Asako couldn’t help but wonder whether that charge was really true.
When Momoko finished attaching the remaining sleeve of her dress, she approached her sister’s bed and stared down at her in silence for a long moment.
Asako waited for her to say something before opening her eyes, but Momoko remained silent.
Eventually, she made her way downstairs, retrieving a bottle of their father’s wine.
Then, she pulled a silver tea bowl from her chest of drawers and poured herself a glass.
She began to take a drink, when she startled and moved to switch off the light.
The moment the room fell dark, Asako burst into tears.
“So you were awake?” Momoko said quietly. “This is why I hate you.”
“Momoko, why? Why are you always so mean to me?”
“I suppose I must be jealous, no? That has to be it.” She gulped down her drink in the darkness. “I need a little medicine to help me fall asleep.”
Just as she had warned her sister, when Natsuji came to visit, Momoko fled to Hakone with the Takemiya boy.
From Tōkyō, they boarded a tourist bus that would take them deep into the mountains.
Momoko closed her eyes, but no sooner did the bus pass through Yokohama than the scent of wheat fields wafted in through the window.
“These pines used to line the old Tōkaidō highway, right?” the boy asked her.
The early-morning sun shone in through the window, the shadows of the pine trees flashing across his cheeks.
Momoko opened her eyes. “Don’t talk like that. You sound like a girl.”
“Do you remember when you made me sing with you? Because you said I had a girl’s voice?”
“Yes. It was on a snowy day, on the shore of Lake Ashi.”
“It was a blizzard.”
“We took a boat across the lake before it started snowing.”
“I had so much fun. Even when the bus got stuck on the mountain on the way home.” The boy took Momoko’s hand, placed it in his lap, and traced her palm with his finger.
“You’re cold. Your hands are always warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I like them.”
To Momoko, it seemed as though the boy was caressing not just her hands but her entire body. “Oh?”
“Are all women like this?” he asked from his seat beside the window.
The wide trunks of the pine trees sped past outside.
Since it was a weekday, the bus was almost empty.
As they crossed over the Banyū River, they saw a flock of birds gathered on the railway bridge.
After passing Yumoto and reaching Mount Hakone, Momoko retrieved a gold necklace from her handbag and hooked it around her neck.
The front of the necklace reached the small bulge at the top of her ribs.
She barely spoke to Takemiya, merely offering vague responses to his attempts at conversation.
They stepped off the bus at Hakone and went straight to the hotel across the road.
She had been meaning to stay here tonight, but instead of asking for a room, she made her way into the lounge and sat down by the window.
“What should we do?” she asked Takemiya. “Maybe we could go farther out across the lake?”
“If you want to. Are you tired from the bus trip?”
“It’s because I’m so tired that I want to keep going. I thought we could stay here, but it looks like they’re doing some renovation work. This isn’t at all what I wanted.”
Construction to extend the building into the garden overlooking the lake was underway, with the new foundations already in place. If they stayed here, she would no doubt be woken in the morning by the sound of workers preparing reinforced concrete. That prospect, however, was somehow comforting.
Nonetheless, they decided to take the two o’clock boat to the far shore of the lake. As they had time to wait, they ate lunch at the hotel.
The pleasure boat was crowded with passengers from Moto-Hakone, and most of the seats on the deck were full.
There was a mountain lodge toward the shore on their right, Takemiya pointed out. “The greenery must be so beautiful at this time of year.”
“We had our fill of greenery in Kyōto. Don’t you remember the beech trees and the flowers at Higashiyama?”
“No. I only had eyes for you, Momoko.”
“You’re a good liar. I taught you to tell the difference between beech and chestnut trees by smell, didn’t I?”
“I’m not paying attention to Lake Ashi now, either.”
Small waves shone on the surface of the water. Looking closer, she could see that while the waves in the wake of the boat were gleaming in the light, those in front of it were a deep blue in color, probably as the vessel was moving in the direction of the afternoon sun.
Those low waves, like a shimmering fire in the auburn light, widened as they approached the southern shore.
Only the summit of Mount Fuji beyond the bow of the boat was hidden behind a veil of white clouds.
The bus from Kojiri to Mount Sōun was crowded with passengers from the boat; so much so that even though Momoko was fortunate enough to get a seat, she couldn’t raise her head without bumping into the people surrounding her.
Only when the bus reached the crater of Ōwakudani was she able to turn her head and catch a glimpse of the lake. The bus seemed to graze the edges of the dense forest as it traversed the winding road. Takemiya reached out from the window, plucking a handful of flowering leaves from the long branches.
At Mount Sōun, they took the cable car to Gōra.
The boy brought the flowers to their room at the inn and placed them on the table. “Momoko,” he murmured, pulling at her necklace.
“That hurts. You’re hurting me.”
“You forgot about me, didn’t you?”
Momoko tried to undo the clasp.
“No, leave it on…I won’t pull on it anymore. It looks good on you, so leave it on.”
“If you like it so much, Little Miya…” she began, before finding herself feeling somehow disappointed that the boy was so attracted to it.
Nonetheless, she continued to wear it, even while taking a bath in the hot spring and when she settled into her pillow.
As soon as they lay down, the boy grabbed the necklace between his teeth.
“Little Miya’s shiny toy,” Momoko said.
The boy, still tugging the necklace with his teeth, pressed his face against her neck and began to cry.
She felt tickled. “Enough with this playacting. It’s unseemly.”
“You’re going to abandon me, aren’t you?”
“This again? Stop it. At the very least, say that we’ll be parting ways.”
“It’s the same thing. I don’t care what you call it.”
“But you’re so morbid, Little Miya. It would be too sad to part ways with you.”
“Yes. I’m morbid. I’m unseemly. Because I’m going to kill you.”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
The boy’s lips on her breast reminded her of the silver tea bowl.
Since Keita’s father had given it to her, she had tried several times to fill the bowl with her breast, but it no longer fit.